Roblox is a world unto itself. While we busy ourselves with the likes of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and Doom Eternal, a cutesy Roblox game about adopting pets and family members has managed to accrue more concurrent players this week than both of those games combined.
It's called Adopt Me!, and according to its creators DreamCraft, it managed to rack up 683,404 concurrent players this week. That can be attributed to an April Fools update: The lure was a "free temporary pet rock" as well as perks like "double pet aging" and "bucks". You also got an "increased furniture limit and backpack space" as well as "extra seats in some cars for your pets". I don't quite understand what any of that means, but it definitely sounds cool.
According to Fandom, Adopt Me! is a spiritual successor to an earlier Roblox game with the much clunkier name Adopt And Raise A Baby! "The game features two roles, baby and parent, which cares for the baby," the Fandom page reads. "Other features include obbies, pets, and customizable houses." Since it first launched in 2017, the game has gradually moved away from the baby and parent scenario, foregrounding the pet aspect. Trading pets, acquiring pets... it's all about the pets, and a cursory glance on YouTube reveals lots of trading tips. As a result, a culture of scamming has inevitably flourished.
According to Roblox Corp, Roblox exceeded 100 million active users in August last year. Meanwhile, a Venture Beat report from December shows that Adopt Me! had been played (or "visited") 3 billion times.
For a bit of context: Mount & Blade II: Warlord has an all-time player peak of 228,662 (that was yesterday, according to SteamDB). Doom Eternal's player peak was 104,891 shortly after launch, though its peak during the last 24 hours was 18,085. The only games reliably smashing the Adopt Me! record on Steam are the obvious ones: Counter-Strike and Dota 2.
Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.
