Intro

Roblox is built on playing together, but there was no platform-level capture functionality. Players used native device screenshots, console buttons and OBS, often disrupting gameplay, then shared privately in messaging apps. Meanwhile, 1.5 billion minutes of Roblox content were watched off-platform every single day. On-platform, 20% of sessions ended without any playtime and a third of sessions lasted under 15 minutes. We saw a unique opportunity to give players an outlet for their creativity, and developers further entry points into their experiences.

Approach

I was the sole designer on content sharing from March 2022, working with a PM, three front-end and four back-end engineers, and partners in Trust & Safety, UXR, legal, data science and design systems. Four principles guided every call: speed over polish, subtle over seen, safety over reach, share over store.

Captures

Captures brought native capture to mobile and desktop, with VR and console deferred until after the MVP. Working with the newly established in-experience Chrome team, I led efforts, as their first partners, to put capture controls behind a progressive disclosure pattern. That experiment proved detrimental to guardrail metrics on co-play, so we ran a second experiment with the capture button immediately accessible on the HUD. I negotiated for players to be able to move the button, for ease of access and to fit around each experience’s own UI. As a result, the disable rate dropped 15% in the experiment cohort. For viewing and, most importantly, sharing, I explored galleries at the experience and global level, then made the case to cut the global version: reviewing and sharing should never mean leaving the game, as extensive conversations with players and developers showed. Partnering with our talented UXR team, I tested the flows in 8 one-on-one interviews with players aged 8 to 24, and we ran a limited experiment with 5% of the global audience.

Moments

Moments are persistent posts with captions and visibility controls, on profiles and experience pages, tested in New Zealand and Canada. I advocated for posts that last over ephemeral stories because we needed developer buy-in, and only lasting attribution on shared content could win it. That was also key to leadership buy-in for later iterations and, most importantly, video capture. It took extensive, difficult conversations with leadership and Trust & Safety. Immediate stakeholders had also wanted to ship without visibility controls, worried they would discourage posting. Players and their parents had shown a clear preference for the opposite, which is what we shipped, along with a single like button and no comments, avoiding toxicity and the possibility of catastrophic publicity for the new feature.

Impact

Captures was announced at RDC and fully launched in Q1 2024.

Players shared Moments, some of them prolifically, and that made the case for video. After I left in mid 2025, Roblox launched Moments publicly in beta at RDC 2025 as a feed of 30-second clips with a Join button. In 2026 it became a main tab in the Roblox app.

There was one share for every 90 captures. If I did it again, I’d track shares per capture from day one, by platform and age.

Takeaways

Alignment is design. Pick the ratio first. Cut with a path back.