Brainrot is a swathe of deliberately random, nonsensical content inspired by memes and AI generated characters that has taken over Roblox.
Games like Steal a Brainrot have accrued over 47.4 billion total nonunique logins and its developers reported 23.4 million active concurrent players in September. The team behind similar games, like Plants Vs Brainrots, have reported 4.1 billion total logins to their game.
These Roblox developers have built massive audiences by capitalising on the popularity of meme culture and digital trends with young audiences on the platform. As Roblox continues to grow, mobile developers can increasingly learn and grow from its trends.
Are these brainrot memes and characters owned by anyone?
There is no definitive answer to whether or not brainrot is owned by any single person or trademarked. This is because brainrot has a nebulous definition and the original sources of these characters and memes vary. Developers need to look at every example on a case-by-case basis to check and see if it can be used in a game.
In some instances, commonly used brainrot memes, like Skibidi toilet, are later trademarked by popular channels and licensed out by its creators. Other brainrot, like Sad Banana Cat, is just a random creature someone made up online and was later popularised without being trademarked.
Steal a Brainrot uses characters from the AI Italian brainrot trend. The developers did not invent these characters and several are sourced from various meme pages on TikTok and YouTube. While it appears that the characters are not trademarked, mobile developers should exercise caution when repurposing memes as characters.
At the moment, Steal a Brainrot developer Spyder Games is suing the creators of a similar game for copyright infringement. The filed complaint notes the other developer stole “artwork, objects, design, and game elements,” but does not mention any specific character.
This isn’t legal advice, but: if you’re a mobile developer looking to incorporate brainrot into your game, make sure you look into the specific characters you want to use and make sure they aren’t owned by any creator.
What can we learn from what’s trending and popular on Roblox?
Internet trends and memes are very porous and can carry over from social media platforms like TikTok into video games. Mobile game developers can capitalise on digital trends in order to reach larger audiences even when the trend didn’t originate within popular mobile games.
Mobile developers don’t need to worry about a game being completely polished. Many of the top games on Roblox have very simple gameplay. Developers can instead focus on speaking to a specific audience using trends like brainrot and keep players engaged with gameplay that doesn’t require a lot of mental effort.
What genres thrive on Roblox and how might those translate over to mobile?
Social simulator games and online multiplayer games thrive on Roblox and can give mobile developers a template for how to export these formats to mobile.
Although Roblox has console and desktop app versions, its largest audience is on mobile. Ideas and concepts from popular games like Steal a Brainrot could translate over perfectly to mobile audiences if they implement multiplayer features in a similar way.
What do Roblox developers do well, and what lessons can we learn from them?
Roblox game developers show how important active and regular community management is when creating a mobile game.
Like most major mobile games, a lot of Roblox developers adopt a live service model, with regular updates and new content being added to their games. Between release cycles, the developers maintain regular communication with users via Discord servers and other social channels.
This gives the developers the chance to drum up excitement over a new update, release exclusive digital content that grows their social channels, and keeps interested users engaged when they aren’t playing the game.
