You’ve probably spent hours dodging "nextbots" or trading limited-edition items without ever wondering where the platform actually came from. Most people assume it’s some giant corporate invention from a shiny Los Angeles skyscraper. It isn't. Honestly, the answer to where was Roblox made is a lot more humble than the multi-billion dollar entity it is today.
It started in a quiet office in Menlo Park, California.
Silicon Valley. That's the short answer. But the long answer involves a basement, a physics simulator, and a lot of 2D blocks before the 3D world we know ever existed. David Baszucki and the late Erik Cassel didn't just wake up and decide to build a gaming empire. They were actually trying to help kids learn physics.
The Menlo Park Beginnings
In the early 2000s, the tech world was still recovering from the dot-com bubble. Baszucki and Cassel had already seen success with a company called Knowledge Revolution. They built a program called Interactive Physics. It was basically a digital laboratory where you could drop weights, smash cars, and see how gravity worked.
They noticed something weird.
Kids weren't just using the software to do their science homework. They were building crazy contraptions. They were making demolition derbies and Rube Goldberg machines. This spark—the realization that users want to create their own fun rather than just follow a script—is exactly where Roblox was made in a spiritual sense.
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By 2004, the duo set up shop in Menlo Park. They called the first prototype "DynaBlocks." If that sounds clunky, it’s because it was. It looked like a 1990s CAD program. They eventually pivoted to the name Roblox (a mashup of "Robot" and "Blocks") because DynaBlocks was just too hard for kids to remember.
The First Office Wasn't a Mansion
If you go looking for the specific building where the code was first compiled, you’re looking at the heart of California’s tech corridor. Specifically, the early headquarters were located at 1065 East Hillsdale Blvd in Foster City, just a stone's throw from Menlo Park.
It wasn't fancy.
Think beige carpets. Think flickering fluorescent lights. Think a few desks pushed together where David and Erik spent 18-hour days debugging code that would eventually host millions of concurrent players. It was a classic "garage-style" startup, even if it was technically an office suite. They were surrounded by companies like Sony and Visa, yet they were building something that looked like a digital LEGO set.
Why the Location Mattered
Silicon Valley provided the perfect ecosystem. You had Stanford University nearby, which acted as a pipeline for some of the brightest engineers in the world. You also had a culture of "building for the sake of building."
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Roblox wasn't an immediate hit. Not even close.
In 2006, when the site officially launched out of its beta phase, the community was tiny. We're talking about a few hundred people. The creators would actually play the games with the users. Imagine being a 10-year-old in 2007 and realizing the guy you’re playing "Build to Survive" with is the CEO who coded the entire platform. That’s the kind of intimacy that only happens in a small, focused startup environment in Northern California.
The Tragedy Behind the Progress
You can't talk about where Roblox was made without mentioning Erik Cassel. While David Baszucki is the face of the company now, Erik was the technical soul. He was the VP of Engineering and a co-founder who lived and breathed the platform’s development.
Sadly, Erik passed away in 2013 after a battle with cancer.
This happened right as the company was moving into its current, much larger headquarters in San Mateo. If you visit the San Mateo office today, it’s a massive tech hub. But the DNA of the platform—the physics engine, the "building block" philosophy—remains rooted in that original Foster City and Menlo Park era where Erik and David worked side-by-side.
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Common Misconceptions About Roblox's Origins
A lot of rumors float around on TikTok and YouTube.
- "Was it made in a basement in Canada?" No. David Baszucki was born in Canada, but the company is and always has been an American entity based in California.
- "Did Microsoft buy it early on?" Nope. Roblox stayed independent for a very long time, which is probably why it survived.
- "Was it a military simulator?" This one is a weirdly common myth. While the physics engine is advanced, it was always intended for education and play, never for the Department of Defense.
From East Hillsdale to the Global Stage
Today, the headquarters is at 970 Park Place, San Mateo, CA. It’s a massive, modern facility. But the "where" has expanded. Roblox is now "made" everywhere. Because the platform relies on User Generated Content (UGC), the games you play aren't being built in California anymore.
They are being built in bedrooms in London. In cafes in Tokyo. In high schools in São Paulo.
The engine stays in San Mateo, but the soul of the game is decentralized. It’s a global digital country. However, the physical roots will always be that small stretch of Highway 101 in Northern California.
How to Explore Roblox History Yourself
If you're a fan or a developer, understanding the history helps you navigate the future of the platform. You can actually still find "archived" versions of the original maps that were created back in the Foster City days.
- Check out the Roblox Blog Archives. They go back years and show the original office photos. It’s a trip to see the old CRT monitors.
- Visit the "Roblox History" Museums. There are several user-created games within Roblox that act as museums, displaying the original 2006 interface and the early avatars.
- Study the Physics Engine. Since the game started as a physics tool, looking into "Constraint Physics" in the Roblox Studio documentation gives you a direct link to what David and Erik were trying to achieve in 2004.
Knowing where was Roblox made isn't just about a GPS coordinate. It’s about realizing that a massive part of modern internet culture started with two guys who just wanted to make a digital version of a science experiment. They stayed in the San Francisco Bay Area, scaled slowly, and eventually changed how an entire generation interacts with the 3D web.
If you’re interested in building your own "world-changing" project, the biggest takeaway from the Roblox story is that you don't need a massive team or a skyscraper. You need a solid physics engine, a few desks in a bland office park in Foster City, and a community that is willing to build alongside you.