RANKED: Top Toy Brands on Roblox, August 2024
The Short
Toy franchises are navigating a shifting digital landscape, with August 2024 data revealing that brands leveraging immersive experiences are emerging as leaders in engagement, while others face new challenges in keeping audiences captivated.
This month’s data reveals a landscape of both challenges and opportunities. While several franchises have seen significant growth, others experienced declines in August, painting a complex picture of digital engagement in the toy industry.
ALDORA’s rankings, measuring new visits and average playtime, offer a window into how brands are captivating audiences in an increasingly competitive digital landscape. As children and young adults continue to shift their leisure time to online platforms, these monthly updates have become a crucial barometer for brand relevance and engagement.
At the top of our August leaderboard, we find a mix of venerable toy lines and media franchises, each navigating their own path in these digital kingdoms. Their performance in these virtual realms is not just a footnote in their overall strategy—it's rapidly becoming a central chapter.
Mattel’s iconic Barbie, while still leading in total visits, has seen a slight decline from July to August. The Barbie DreamHouse Tycoon experience on Roblox attracted a staggering 19 million new visits in August alone, with users spending an average of 14.5 minutes per session. This level of engagement speaks volumes about the power of well-crafted immersive experiences to hold attention in an age of digital distraction.
But Barbie isn’t the only one making waves in this new digital sea. Superhero franchises, long accustomed to leaping tall buildings, are now vaulting across platforms with equal agility. Marvel and Spider-Man experiences collectively drew over 20 million new visits in August. The Marvel and DC Super Heroes experience alone saw 11.6 million new visits, with users engaging for an average of 9.6 minutes per session. These numbers underscore the enduring appeal of superhero franchises and their successful translation into interactive digital environments.
The digital realm is also proving to be fertile ground for anime franchises. Dragon Ball and One Piece experiences show strong performance, with Dragon Ball-related experiences accumulating over 7 million new visits in August. The Dragon Ball Rage experience stands out with over 4 million new visits and an impressive average playtime of 16.5 minutes. These figures suggest that the fantastical worlds of anime are finding new life—and new audiences—in immersive digital spaces.
Even traditional toy brands, those stalwarts of physical play, are adapting to this new reality. LEGO, a brand synonymous with hands-on creativity, is successfully extending its appeal into the digital sphere. The LEGO Building Simulator attracted over 700,000 new visits in August, with users spending nearly 10 minutes per session on average. Similarly, Hot Wheels is racing into the digital age with its Open World experience, which saw close to 1 million new visits. These examples illustrate how classic toy brands can successfully transition into immersive digital experiences without losing their core appeal.
The message encoded in these numbers is clear: immersive experiences are becoming increasingly meaningful for audiences and, by extension, more crucial for brands. The high engagement times—many exceeding 10 minutes per session—indicate that users are not just passively interacting with these digital spaces. They're living in them, playing, creating, and connecting with brands on a deeper level than ever before.
For toy franchises and entertainment brands, this shift represents both a challenge and an unprecedented opportunity. These digital platforms offer a chance to extend the life and relevance of franchises, reach new digitally-native audiences, create year-round engagement beyond physical product cycles, test new ideas with real-time feedback, and build communities around their brands.
Looking to the future, we can expect to see more brands investing heavily in emerging immersive spaces. The lines between physical toys, digital play, and brand engagement will continue to blur. Successful brands will be those that can create cohesive experiences across all these touchpoints, using digital immersion to strengthen their overall brand ecosystem.
Our August 2024 data shows that toy franchises are not just adapting to the digital age—they're actively shaping it. As immersive experiences become more sophisticated and widespread, they will play an increasingly crucial role in how brands connect with their audiences, create value, and stay relevant in a rapidly changing digital landscape.
In this new world of play, the most successful brands will be those that understand a fundamental truth: in the digital realm, engagement is the new currency, and immersive experiences are the mint.
Every month ALDORA aggregates the performance and engagement of major brands in immersive environments and across interactive experiences.
You may also like our recent report Beyond Mobile, which compared the efficacy of immersive experiences versus traditional digital strategies.