Roblox has become a behemoth in digital content creation over the past five years. There are more than 70 million videos about it uploaded to TikTok, and it’s consistently one of YouTube‘s most-watched titles, with creators like KreekCraft racking up tens of millions of views (and 10+ million subscribers) on content made within the game. It also, through its DevEx program for game developers, generated over $1.2 billion worth of economic value in the United States between 2017 and 2023.
And one of the game developers within that program is making something that could end up turning Roblox into a competitor for TikTok and YouTube.
Back in March, Neura Studios released Clip It–a TikTok and YouTube Shorts lookalike that only operates exclusively within the Roblox platform. It has most of the same functionalities: a swipe-to-the-next-video UI, likes, comments, and a suite of editing tools that lets creators post clips from the game or create their own by selecting poses and background environments for their digital avatars.
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Within six weeks of going live, Clip It generated 100 million views, Neura Studios said in a tweet. Now, it’s at over a billion views with 8 million monthly active users, and has been (by plugging into the platform’s programmatic ad sales system, which places the same ads across all Roblox experiences) running marketing alongside its stream of user-generated content. But it has bigger plans for ads–plans that involve launching its own ad products, per a report from Digiday.
So far, Neura Studios has monetized Clip It through Roblox‘s ad revenue share program, as well as selling “content packs” that pad its editing suite with exclusive backgrounds and more tools. “We’re also a really big seller of Roblox [user-generated content items], so if a character is wearing something people want, it’s easy for them to spend Robux and acquire it in two to three taps,” Yevheniy Shestopalko, Clip It’s lead developer, told Digiday.
Clip It also received a chunk of Roblox‘s $35 million Creator Fund, plus an Innovation Award from the 2024 Roblox Developers Conference in early September.
While Clip It is limited in that it exists just within the Roblox platform, its developers have a big vision for it–one that extends beyond the game’s edge, and out to challenge YouTube and TikTok not only for views on short-form Roblox videos, but for advertiser dollars, too.
With its own advertising products, it plans to incorporate things like full-screen video ads and custom branded integrations–and all those deals will be done without Roblox taking a cut of revenue. There’s a potential future where Clip It users can have their digital avatars grooving to the latest track from Billie Eilish in front of a Chipotle storefront. (Because we have no doubt if this thing takes off, Chipotle will be one of the first brands in line to try it.)
Ben Saraille, co-founder of Makeshift, the agency Neura Studios tapped to help with ad sales and other business expansion, said developers view Clip It not as a game “so much as a social platform, and that makes a huge difference for what brands can do with it.”
“For games, even if the size or demo is right, the fit is often wrong, and that makes ads feel foreign or disingenuous. But nothing is off topic in Clip It, because like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and other content apps, there’s a place for every niche,” he added.
Saraille told Digiday some brands have already signed on for upcoming ad products and some are still in negotiations; he wouldn’t say which brands are involved.
“2025 is set to be our busiest year by far, and we’ve got several items on our product roadmap which will unlock new ideas that haven’t been possible before,” he said. “As a rule of thumb: if there’s a feature you’re used to using in advertisements on TikTok, Snap, Instagram or YouTube Shorts, it’s either there or will be soon.”
Does that mean Clip It can whip into a real challenger for YouTube Shorts and TikTok? As we mentioned above, there’s certainly a healthy contingent of both short-form creators and viewers for Roblox content, and Roblox itself has been mentioned alongside YouTube and TikTok in annual app watch time reports because of how much attention it commands from kids. But whether those creators and viewers will be willing to go all-in on a platform where content can only be made and watched within Roblox remains to be seen.
