Roblox Rebuilt Its Discovery Algorithm. 13 of the Top 20 Turned Over in 9 Months.

In March 2025, Roblox globally activated its new Recommended For You (RFY) discovery algorithm — a system that recommends games based on engagement quality (qualified play-through rate, weekly playtime, intentional co-play) rather than raw popularity.¹

I analyzed the Top 20 games by visits from July 2024 through December 2025.² Before RFY, mature games (24+ months of data) held 84% of all Top 20 visits. Six months after, 18%.

In July 2024, 16 of the 20 most-visited games were mature. Murder Mystery 2 had held a Top 20 spot for 57 consecutive months. Brookhaven RP and Blox Fruits traded #1 for eight straight months, neither exceeding 2.2B monthly visits. Total Top 20 visits ranged from 6.4B to 9.0B per month.

After RFY launched, mature game visit share dropped to 52% in March, 34% in May, 24% in June. Brand new games (fewer than 6 months of data) went from 1.3% of Top 20 visits to 60.7% over the same period.

The #1 game tells its own story. Before RFY: Brookhaven and Blox Fruits alternated, holding 17–25% share. After: Grow a Garden hit 48.1% in June 2025. Steal a Brainrot held 35–40% for six consecutive months.

Grow a Garden first appeared in the dataset in April 2025. Two months later it held 8.1B visits — 48.1% of all Top 20 traffic. Steal a Brainrot entered in June 2025. By August it was #1 with 9.9B visits. It held the top position through December.

Before RFY, the #1 game peaked at 2.2B visits (Blox Fruits, December 2024). After, the #1 routinely exceeded 7B.

The share data overstates the displacement. In absolute terms, mature games held between 4.0B and 5.9B visits every month across the entire 18-month window. They weren't losing traffic.

What changed is the total. Top 20 visits grew from 8.0B (July 2024) to 28.7B (August 2025). All the incremental growth came from games younger than 18 months.

Of the 20 games in the Top 20 in July 2024, 7 remained by December 2025.

The drop was steep early — 20 to 15 in the first month — then stabilized around 12–14 through early 2025. After RFY, the count continued: 10 by April, 9 by July, 7 by December.

Where the original 20 ended up:

• 7 still in the Top 20 — Brookhaven (#3), Blox Fruits (#5), The Strongest Battlegrounds (#8), Adopt Me (#9), Murder Mystery 2 (#12), Catalog Avatar Creator (#16), Dress To Impress (#19)
• 9 slipped to #21–50 — Evade (#21), Tower of Hell (#22), Jujutsu Shenanigans (#23), PLS DONATE (#25), Berry Avenue (#26), LifeTogether (#28), BARRY'S PRISON RUN (#35), Blade Ball (#38), BedWars (#39)
• 2 fell to #51–100 — Piggy (#53), Slap Battles (#84)
• 2 below #100 — Toilet Tower Defense (#4 to #221), Gym League (#16 to #288)

Median tenure of a Top 20 game dropped from 14 months (July 2024) to 7 (December 2025). The minimum is always 1 — fresh entrants every month. The maximum keeps climbing: Murder Mystery 2 reached 71 consecutive months by December 2025.

The games that filled those spots are mostly new to the platform: Grow a Garden (first data April 2025), Steal a Brainrot (June 2025), 99 Nights in the Forest (June 2025), Plants Vs Brainrots (September 2025), The Forge (December 2025), Find the Brainrot (December 2025).

Footnotes

1. RFY — Recommended For You — uses multiple engagement signals including qualified play-through rate, weekly playtime, and intentional co-play. In December 2025, Roblox made incremental signal adjustments (e.g., counting reserved server sessions as intentional co-play) — a refinement, not a structural change. ↩

2. Dataset covers the top games by monthly visits. "Months of data" refers to how many months a game has appeared in the tracking dataset, not the game's launch date. Bucket definitions: Brand New (<6 months), Young (6–11), Growing (12–17), Established (18–23), Mature (24+). ↩