Brands don’t have to spend big on Roblox worlds anymore. The studios that once made them are consolidating.

Consolidation is hitting Roblox.

Metaverse production company Super League has acquired Supersocial, which describes itself as “a leader in immersive marketing” that specializes in making branded digital experiences within Roblox for clients like Gucci, Walmart, and Warner Bros. This follows media/ecommere business Infinite Reality‘s January acquisition of 3-D store maker Obsess, and game developer Voldex‘s February acquisition of top Roblox game Brookhaven.

In some ways, it’s inevitable. Roblox has proven itself to be the lingering king of the metaverse, carving out a niche where creators are making nearly a billion dollars selling virtual items and IRL brands are connecting with consumers in digital worlds. Being at the forefront of a burgeoning industry has made Roblox an attractive prize for game development, marketing, and ecommerce businesses–and now that the market is crowded with 100+ companies specializing in Roblox, competitors are going to start swallowing one another.

Super League isn’t disclosing financial details of the acquisition, nor saying if the Supersocial team will be thinned as part of it. Super League CEO/President Matt Edelman did tell Digiday that post-acq, his company will have around 50 employees, with a sales team of between five and 10 people. ‘Supersocial’ as a brand will be dissolved; it’ll all be under the Super League umbrella.

Edelman added that with Super League and Supersocial combined, they now have a stable of 49 Roblox games/virtual destinations, with 390 million lifetime visits and 3 billion lifetime advertising impressions.

Chris Mann, SVP of gaming marketing agency REV/XP, told Digiday this could be the start of a wave of consolidation across the Roblox industry similar to the wave that went through gaming and esports teams following the initial surge of interest during early pandemic days.

“In the case of Roblox studios/agencies, this trend will likely continue, with those that succeed differentiating themselves through both unique, quality work, pricing and client communications,” he said.

While, like we mentioned above, this Darwinian rebalancing after the boom is inevitable as startups take stock after a couple years going for digital gold, there are other things happening here.

One of the biggest factors is likely Roblox’s introduction of programmatic ads. Up until recently, if a brand wanted to meet consumers in Roblox, it had to work with an individual development studio to create a game/experience where players could come visit. But when Roblox brought in programmatic ads, things changed. Just last month, Roblox partnered with Google to introduce offerings like “a billboard ad you see driving through a virtual city or an ad on the big screen during a virtual football game.”

Basically, brands that want to reach the Roblox audience don’t need to work with studios and splash out for their own custom fully developed virtual destinations anymore. They can just hand money directly to Roblox, and buy a billboard in one of the platform’s already popular games. That means less income for developers–a pinch we’ve already seen them speak up about.

Charles Hambro, CEO of metaverse spend tracker company GEEIQ, told Digiday studios were once commanding a million dollars plus to develop a single branded world, but now struggle to charge this price, since companies are being given other, much cheaper ways to advertise. It’s been a significant cut to studios’ cash flow.

“A lot of these studios were used to charging a certain price, and they built their business models around charging that certain price,” he said. “Now, it’s starting to not really work with what the market rate is, in terms of what a brand is willing to spend.”

Studios have to pivot to less expensive offerings to avoid shutting down, he added. Or, as we expect we’ll see in the coming months, they can merge with competitors (like Super League?) who are successfully navigating this shift.