In December 2011, Roblox held its first Hack Week, an annual event where Roblox developers work on outside-the-box ideas for new developments to present to the company. Throughout 2012, versions of Roblox for mobile devices were developed. By May, they had already released a stripped down version of the platform for iOS that only included its social features, but did not allow users to play games on it. On December 11 of that year, a full version of Roblox for iOS was released. It was followed by an Android version on July 16, 2014.

By 2014, Roblox had released its Developer Exchange program, allowing developers to exchange Robux earned from their games into real-world currencies. On May 31, 2015, a feature called Smooth Terrain was added, increasing the graphical fidelity of in-game terrain and changing the Roblox physics engine from a block-oriented style to a smoother and more realistic one. On November 20, Roblox was launched on Xbox One, with an initial selection of 15 games chosen by Roblox staff. Support for the publishing of Roblox games for Xbox One was later rolled out to all users, subject to an approval process based on Entertainment Software Rating Board standards.

In April 2016, Roblox launched Roblox VR for Oculus Rift. At the time of release, more than ten million games were available in 3D. Around the same time period, the safe chat feature was removed and replaced by a system based on a whitelist and with a set of acceptable words for users under 13 years old and a set of blacklisted words.

In June, the company launched a version compatible with Windows 10. While the game platform has had a presence on personal computers when its web version was created in 2004, this was the first time it was upgraded with a standalone launcher built for Windows.

Throughout 2017, Roblox engaged in a number of updates to its server technology, as the technology they were operating on until that point was out of date and led to frequent outages. Also in 2017, Roblox closed its official forums.

In November 2018, the ability for a player to play as a "guest", without an account, which had been progressively restricted over the previous two years, was removed entirely. In July 2020, Roblox announced the creation of "Party Place", which functions as an online hangout. The feature was created using new technology that had been used during the 2020 Bloxy Awards and was designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Roblox was granted permission to release in China on December 3, 2020.

On June 9, 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) filed a lawsuit against Roblox, alleging that the platform allowed users to upload copyrighted music without obtaining proper licensing. The lawsuit sought US$200 million in damages and a court order requiring Roblox to address piracy on its platform. The NMPA claimed that Roblox maintained a collection of copyrighted songs not licensed for use and accused the company of "actively preying on its impressionable user base and their desire for popular music, teaching children that pirating music is perfectly acceptable." In response to the lawsuit, Roblox hired over a thousand human moderators to manually review and moderate audio uploads on the platform. However, plaintiffs claimed that users could bypass detection by searching for song titles or partial terms instead of artist names, enabling them to upload copyrighted music despite the moderation measures in place. Roblox addressed the lawsuit by stating it does not promote copyright infringement and expressed surprise and disappointment. The company emphasized its commitment to working with the music industry, citing past collaborations with artists like Lil Nas X and Zara Larsson as evidence of its support for licensed content. Following the lawsuit, the NMPA reached a deal with Roblox to establish a framework for publisher partnerships, aimed at expanding creative and commercial opportunities. Around the same time, the NMPA also secured a similar deal with Twitch.

In October 2021, Roblox experienced its longest downtime to date, with services being unavailable for three days. In December 2021, Roblox shut down its Chinese servers, stating that they were attempting to create "another version" of the app that allowed Chinese players to access the platform. In July 2022, an archive of internal documents related to the platform's activities in China were leaked by an unidentified hacker. This document revealed that the Roblox Corporation had planned to roll out a variety of changes to the platform to comply with Chinese internet censorship laws, and that prior to halting their operations in China they had been concerned that Tencent would hack the platform and attempt to set up a competitor.

In September 2022, Roblox Corporation announced that it planned to add an age rating system, which would allow for moderate portrayals of violence in games flagged as suitable for players aged 13 and over. The company stated that it wanted to increase the platform's appeal to a young adult audience of users 17–24, which it stated was the fastest-growing demographic on Roblox. On June 20, 2023, Roblox started allowing games rated as only for players 17 years and over, which are permitted to have more graphic violence, romantic themes, and alcohol usage.

On July 27, 2023, Roblox was released as a public beta for the Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro. The beta was downloaded over one million times within five days. In September 2023, it was announced that Roblox would be made available on the PlayStation the following month, with the Meta Quest versions being made publicly available later in September. Around the same time, Roblox Corporation acquired Speechly, a Helsinki-headquartered startup company specializing in artificial intelligence voice chat moderation technology, for an undisclosed price.

In March 2024, two generative artificial intelligence tools were introduced to Roblox Studio in an effort to speed up content creation: automatic avatar customization and a texture generator. The avatar customization feature automatically converts three-dimensional body meshes into live-animated avatars, and the texture generator allows users to create textures of objects using text descriptions through a text-to-image model.

In response to numerous concerns about and reports of sexual predation on child players, including a ban in Turkey, on November 18, 2024, Roblox revamped parental controls and released new safety measures for users under the age of 13. Parents can create a separate account to control their child's account and have more options such as to limit screen time. Users under 13 are not allowed to exchange private messages outside games and must have parental permission to do so within.

Early on in its history, Roblox was a fairly small platform, as was its company. In January 2014, the platform had about 10 to 12 million monthly players, with only a faction of those having accounts and the others playing as "guests". In the latter half of the 2010s, Roblox began to rapidly grow in popularity, with this growth being further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. By August 2020, Roblox had over 164 million monthly active users, including half of all American children under the age of 16. Players have used the platform to express political activism, with some users and Baszucki declaring their support for the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter, and some using the platform to perform activities that were paused by COVID-19 lockdowns, such as religious processions.

A substantial part of Roblox's reputation was due in part to its original sound effect for when a character died, transcribed and titled as the "oof" sound effect, which became an internet meme. The sound was originally produced by Joey Kuras for the video game Messiah (2000), causing Roblox and Kuras to enter a copyright dispute that ended with Roblox replacing the sound with a new one in 2022.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected Roblox in numerous ways. Due to quarantines imposed by the pandemic limiting social interaction, Roblox was being used as a way for children to communicate with each other. One of the most noted ways that this method of communication is being carried out is the phenomenon of birthday parties being held on the platform. COVID-19 has caused a substantial increase in both the platform's revenue and the number of players on it, in line with similar effects experienced by the majority of the gaming industry, as players forced to remain indoors due to COVID-19 lockdowns spent more time playing video games.

Roblox occasionally hosts real-life and virtual events. They have in the past hosted events such as BloxCon, which was a convention for ordinary players on the platform. Roblox operates annual Easter egg hunts and also hosts an annual event called the "Bloxy Awards", an awards ceremony that also functions as a fundraiser. The 2020 edition of the Bloxy Awards, held virtually on the platform, drew 600,000 viewers. In 2022, "Bloxy Awards" got rebranded into the "Roblox Innovation Awards". Roblox Corporation annually hosts the Roblox Developers Conference, a three-day invite-only event in San Francisco where top content creators on the site learn of upcoming changes to the platform. The company has also hosted similar events in London and Amsterdam.

Roblox occasionally engages in events to promote films, such as ones held to promote Wonder Woman 1984 and Aquaman. In 2020, Roblox hosted its first virtual concert, which was compared by Rolling Stone to that of American rapper Travis Scott's virtual concert in Fortnite, during which American rapper Lil Nas X debuted his song "Holiday" to an audience of Roblox players. In 2021, Swedish singer Zara Larsson performed songs at a virtual party to celebrate her the reissuing of her album Poster Girl. On September 17, 2021, a virtual concert by the American band Twenty One Pilots took place. In October 2021, Roblox partnered with Chipotle Mexican Grill to give $1 million of burritos away to the first 30,000 people every day as a part of Chipotle's Halloween Boorito promotion.

Common Sense Media gave Roblox 4 out of 5 stars, praising the website's variety of games and ability to encourage creativity in children while finding that the decentralized nature of the platform meant game quality varied, and recommended disabling chat functions for young players to prevent possibly harmful interactions. Patricia E. Vance of the Family Online Safety Institute advised parents to monitor their child's interactions on the platform but praised the platform for "...allowing kids to play, explore, socialize, create and learn in a self-directed way", and granting special praise to Roblox Studio for its ability to encourage children to experience game development. Trusted Reviews, in its overview of the platform, also praised Roblox Studio, stating that "for anyone seeking to develop their computer science skills, or create projects that will instantly receive feedback from a huge audience, the appeal is obvious".

During the 2017 Roblox Developers Conference, officials said that creators on the game platform, of which there were about 1.7 million as of 2017, collectively earned at least $30 million in 2017. The iOS version of Roblox passed $1 billion of lifetime revenue in November 2019, $1.5 billion in June 2020, and $2 billion in October 2020, making it the iOS app with the second-highest revenue. Several individual games on Roblox have accumulated revenues of over $10 million, while developers as a whole on the platform were collectively projected to have earned around $250 million over the course of 2020. It became the third highest-grossing game of 2020, with a revenue of $2.29 billion, below the Tencent titles PUBG and Honor of Kings.

Throughout its history, Roblox has been criticized many times. Criticisms that Roblox has faced include those regarding its chat filtration system, alleged exploitative practices that target children, sexual content, and its presence of content related to political extremism. In a 2021 study done by tech review and tutorial company Electronics Hub, which interpreted several million social media posts about 87 different mobile games and apps, Roblox was found to be one of the most disliked mobile apps. It was the most disliked app in 21 countries, mainly Eastern European countries, although it was not the most disliked app worldwide. This specific study was not able to conclude or highlight any specific reasons why audiences disliked the platform.

Roblox has received widespread criticism for its chat filtration system. Although Roblox's filtration system, Community Sift, censors and removes most inappropriate messages and content, it is possible to bypass the system, for example by using third-party chat apps. To combat these issues, Roblox has 1,600 people working to remove such content from the platform, and also offers privacy settings and parental controls.

Though sexual content is prohibited on Roblox, the platform has received substantial criticism for the presence of sexually explicit games and imagery within it. This content includes items such as virtual sex clubs and nightclubs, with creators of said content largely communicating through third-party platforms which cannot be regulated by Roblox moderators. A 2020 investigation by Fast Company found that sexual content was still prevalent within Roblox, with attempts by moderators to remove it being likened to "whack-a-mole", though it was also found that the situation had generally improved in the recent years prior to the report. In an October 2022 interview, Roblox Chief Scientist Morgan McGuire stated that it's "a challenge to moderate 3D," and also compared moderating Roblox to shutting down speakeasies.

These issues have led to numerous reports of sexual predation on child players, which a 2024 Bloomberg Businessweek report attributed to insufficient moderation, such as reliance on artificial intelligence, and how users are anonymous. The report highlighted the case of Arnold "DoctorRofatnik" Castillo, the developer of a popular Sonic the Hedgehog fangame Sonic Eclipse Online. After his personal account was banned for reports of preying on a child, he transferred the game to a friend's account and continued profiting from it. Roblox refused to take the game down, not seeing it as a safety concern; Sonic the Hedgehog's owner Sega was later notified and sent a takedown request for copyright infringement. Castillo was eventually arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison for transporting a child across interstate boundaries for sex. Statements of anonymous Roblox Corporation employees tell that the staff struggles with high numbers of child safety reports and claim that additional safety features, such as a pop-up notice, were rejected and safety settings are off by default. The report however noticed that Roblox has improved in moderation and reported more child predators than before. Roblox has claimed that the report's accusations are "glaring mischaracterizations" and "[fail] to reflect both the complexities of online child safety".

Roblox has been criticized for making it easy for children to spend large sums of money through microtransactions, leading to numerous instances where children have spent large sums of money on the platform without parents' knowledge, and deleting the accounts of players who file chargebacks or request refunds for Robux payments through their banks, card issuers or other third-party companies. Professor Jane Juffer at Cornell University accused Roblox of encouraging consumerism in children.

In April 2022, Truth in Advertising filed a complaint against Roblox with the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising, mainly failing to disclose when advertising is present, such as with advergames and brand ambassadors. As a response, in March 2023, Roblox started hiding advertisements from users under the age of 13. However, this does not apply to advergames for that they are not designated as advertising by the platform, which has led to further criticism by Truth in Advertising and children's digital rights organization 5Rights. A Roblox spokesperson, through a statement in The Observer, provided reasoning that engagement in advergames is not different from how consumers interact with brands through other mediums, such as films, and that the platform provides guidance for advergame creators and licensors.

In May 2021, researcher Daniel Kelley of the Anti-Defamation League reported that numerous games on Roblox have recreated mass shootings, and criticized its moderation team for being unable to moderate them. An example of this were three different games that simulated the Christchurch mosque shootings. Later that year in June, Cecilia D'Anastasio of Wired reported that numerous groups and games on Roblox that simulated real-world military units and regimes. including the Wehrmacht. An example that was provided was Innsbruck Border Simulator, a game that had players play as Nazis, was reported to have gained over a million plays before being deleted by the Roblox team. In 2023, Gamesindustry.biz reported that congresswoman Lori Trahan criticized numerous video game companies for failing to address questions on how to combat online extremism, but noted Roblox to be an exception, with them claiming to have a team dedicated to moderating extremist content. Gamesindustry.biz, however, mentioned the company being criticized in the past for being unable to moderate games that recreated real world shootings.

Roblox has been accused by the investigative journalism YouTube channel People Make Games of "exploiting" child game developers by promising them huge amounts of money when they monetize their games, while only giving them little to no money in return by having high revenue cuts, an exchange rate in selling Robux lower than the rate for buying Robux, and lack of methods to make their games easily discoverable. This was likened to company scrip. In a discussion with Axios, Roblox's chief product officer (CPO) Manuel Bronstein responded by saying that Roblox intends to give more money to its community developers.

After Roblox requested the channel to take down the video, People Make Games instead released further accusations of practices endangering child safety, such as a lack of oversight of developers and a method for people to address developer abuse, leading to child developers being exploited for labor on third-party platforms, allowing a developer (later identified as Arnold Castillo) to seemingly continue monetizing and having control of game development despite having his personal account banned for reportedly sexually preying on a child, running the collectibles market to function like gambling and thus encouraging children to seek unofficial and unsafe trading sites to easily obtain highly valuable items, and refusing to help a developer whose account was hacked and had its collectibles and assets stolen.

The series premiere of The Kardashians, which debuted on April 14, 2022, titled "Burn Them All to the F*cking Ground", led to a public feud between Kim Kardashian and Roblox. In the episode, Kim's son Saint West shows his mother an experience on the platform from a tablet that depicts an image of Kim crying. She claimed, however, that the person who uploaded the experience had also obtained footage of her and Ray J's sex tape, and that she reacted by crying and claiming to later sue the company. The veracity of this incident has been questioned, as Roblox's filters do not allow the words "sex tape" or variant spellings, and because given that Roblox had about 11.1 million experiences at the time, the chances that Saint West would randomly stumble upon an experience promoting her sex tape are very small. A spokesperson for Roblox responded by stating that the video was never present on the platform, and that any text referencing it was swiftly taken down. An individual close to the Kardashian family denied accusations of faking the event.

Roblox has been banned in six countries: China, Guatemala, Jordan, North Korea, Oman and Turkey. Additionally, it was banned in the United Arab Emirates from 2018 to 2021. The reasons behind these bans differ from country to country, with China banning it due to its American origin and perceived anti-communist propaganda, aiming to protect Chinese children from perceived anti-communist influences, and Turkey banning it due to content that may lead to gambling and child sexual abuse. Additionally, the Netherlands and Belgium have restricted certain games on the platform due to their regulations on in-game "lootboxes", which give out items based on random or unknown chances, to reduce children's exposure to gambling.

In January 2017, toy fabricator Jazwares partnered with Roblox Corporation to produce toy minifigures based on user-generated content created by developers on the platform. The minifigures have limbs and joints similar to that of Lego minifigures, though they are about twice the size. The minifigures have limbs and accessories that are interchangeable. The sets included a code that was used to redeem virtual items, as well as blind boxes that contained random minifigures. In 2019, Jazwares released a new line of toys, branded as the "Roblox Desktop" series. On April 13, 2021, Roblox partnered with Hasbro to release Roblox-themed Nerf blasters and a Roblox-themed Monopoly edition.

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