David Baszucki and Erik Cassel created Roblox in 2004. The platform began as an ambitious physics-based sandbox in which users could build, experiment and interact rather than merely play a fixed commercial game.
Before Roblox, Baszucki and Cassel had worked at Knowledge Revolution, the company behind educational simulation software such as Interactive Physics. That background helped shape Roblox’s emphasis on physics, construction tools and user-created content. Early prototypes used names including eBlocks, GoBlocks and DynaBlocks before the Roblox name was adopted.
The date can be confusing because development began before the public launch. Roblox was officially released on September 1, 2006, so 2006 is the launch year, not the creation year asked about here. The company behind the platform was also founded in 2004.
Roblox later became a platform for user-generated experiences made with Roblox Studio. Its original two-person founding story is therefore important: Baszucki supplied the central vision, while Cassel was his longtime engineering collaborator and co-founder.