How a young Korean turned Roblox into lucrative career

SAN JOSE — "Stop playing games."

Roblox game developer Gold Octopus, whose real name is Cho Young-gwang, says his parents rarely nagged him to stop playing games. While his parents were at work and often came home late, he spent his time on online games.

The middle school student developed games before the platform became widely known in Korea. That childhood hobby became a profession, bringing the 20-year-old digital creator an income of more than 100 million won ($67,800).

Roblox reported about 144 million daily active users in March, making it a major platform in the creator economy. Gold Octopus, an early developer on the platform, spoke with the Hankook Ilbo in an interview Friday at the Roblox Developers Conference 2026 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in California. He taught himself game development instead of going to college. He also taught himself Japanese and recently began collaborating with a Japanese company.

The young developer built his reputation with his flagship game, Sol's RNG, winning Best Experience of the Year and Outstanding Creator of the Year at the 2024 Roblox Korea Community Awards. After receiving invitations to the annual conference in 2024 and 2025, he took the stage as a featured speaker this year.

Although such success remains rare, becoming a teenage professional developer is not merely a pipe dream. Roblox recently introduced Build, a mobile-first artificial intelligence creation feature that turns text prompts into basic games, making the transition from a young player to a professional game creator easier.

Yoon Young-geun, CEO of user-generated content studio Versework, forecast that the Roblox ecosystem could mirror YouTube's trajectory as a new creator industry. He said many creators affiliated with Versework started developing games in middle and high school, with some earning about 2 billion won annually in dollars. Gold Octopus freelances for Versework, which remains the only Korean company ranked among the top 20 on the Roblox platform.

Creators at Versework are on average 27 years old, ranging from 18 to their early 50s. Yoon said developers who start early can accumulate nearly a decade of experience by the time they turn 20. He compared the profession favorably to becoming a YouTuber — a popular career aspiration among teenagers — noting that game developers can succeed without ever showing their faces on camera.

High earnings, however, demand a grueling workload.

"Unlike games on many other mobile platforms, Roblox titles demand a relentless weekly update cycle that tests creator stamina and persistence," Yoon said. "Many developers leave the industry after a single unsuccessful release, but Grow a Garden, a game that set a record for concurrent players last year, was actually its developer's 70th release over a 10-year period."

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.