A Kiwi is now the face behind one of the biggest Roblox games in the world right now - and it all started with a 16-year-old coder.
The Roblox game ‘Grow a Garden’ - where you plant seeds, grow plants, and occasionally steal from your neighbours - just hit a massive milestone with 20 million people playing at the same time.
To put it into perspective, that’s more than Fortnite’s previous record of 15.3 million back in November 2020, which held the concurrent player record right up until 'Grow a Garden' took the crown.
Janzen Madsen is a 28-year-old from Nelson, who founded Splitting Point Studios, a company that scouts out Roblox games with the potential to thrive and helps them level up.
They chose to develop ‘Grow a Garden’ when it only had a few thousand players.
“It was created by a 16-year-old in three or four days,” Madsen told RNZ’s Morning Report. “I’d known him previously, we partnered together, and he’s still part of the development team.”
He called the success a “big team effort”.
“This game is run by a bunch of passionate developers who just want to build something for gamers and a community.”
According to Business Insider, since 2021, Madsen and his team have created over 25 Roblox games, generating six-figure monthly revenue and billions of game plays.
BBC reported 'Grow a Garden' alone has seen a whopping 9 billion visits since March, with roughly a third of players being aged under 13-years-old.
Not bad at all for a game studio that kicked off in 2017, when Madsen was just 19, and ran it from his parents house.
Commenters who heard about the success on Reddit have given praise to Madsen and his team, with one user writing: “My kids play it. Didn't realise it was a NZ game developer. Good on him.”
Another said: “It's all the rage at the moment with the young teens. Good on NZer!”
“Awesome work! Keep growing and crushing life,” said a third.
It’s epic to see some passionate Kiwis making big moves in huge spaces like the gaming world.
