Corporate boardrooms are trying to wrap their heads around how to leverage mobile-focused video game behemoth Roblox for their own gain, similar to how they were once forced to adapt to the rise of YouTube.

Like YouTube, Roblox diverges from the entertainment status quo. Both are driven by a sprawling network of content creators, many of whom begin as independent developers with little technical knowledge, and their audiences skew young. YouTube gives people tools to publish videos and an app in which users can watch them; Roblox gives people tools to build video games and an app in which users can play them.

Because of how Roblox games originate, they do not look as polished as those from big-budget studios on Xbox or PlayStation consoles. The graphics are rudimentary, and the games are most often played via mobile devices. Yet Roblox’s offerings, which are mostly free to play but often sell in-game cosmetic items and power-ups, can still be wildly popular, amassing more than 100 million daily active players. As Sportico has reported, mobile gaming is significantly larger than console usage globally.

Roblox’s grittier feel—akin to the appeal of an at-home YouTube vlog—is an asset. That said, it’s a trait that poses a challenge for brands, which feel a need to get involved but must do so in a way that comes off as organic within the raw aesthetics of the platform.

Enter the middlemen. Companies such as Gamefam connect native Roblox games and their creators with brands, reminiscent of the multi-channel networks (MCNs) that proliferated YouTube in the early 2010s and signed video makers to content partnerships.

The middlemen assume development and commercial responsibilities upon gaining a game’s rights. They implement corporate markings while ensuring a title still resonates with users.

On Friday, Gamefam announced the release of FIFA Super Soccer—a rebrand of a popular game it already owned, Super League Soccer. FIFA Super Soccer is one of many Roblox titles Gamefam has acquired from independent creators. As part of its adaptation, it added licensed properties related to FIFA, teams and some of FIFA’s brand partners, such as Adidas.

In this case, Gamefam has maintained a working relationship with the game maker, Mats Watte, whose original creation did not feature any intellectual property from soccer organizations. Gamefam did not disclose the financial terms of its licensing pact with FIFA that led to the rebranding.

“I was just in a meeting earlier today, and we were talking about, well, this is kind of like a [multi-channel network],” Ricardo Briceno, chief business officer of Gamefam, told Sportico in a video interview ahead of the FIFA Super Soccer announcement. “But it’s also a dirty word these days. So we’re not quite an MCN because it’s not just aggregating, because we also are operating and, like developing and doing things. But I don’t think it’s a bad example. It’s a good connection there.”

Many of YouTube’s multi-channel networks, perhaps most infamously Machinima, ultimately developed negative reputations. Independent creators came to resent the deals they signed, which they considered predatory because of lopsided revenue-sharing terms and long-term restrictions that barred them from working elsewhere.

There are some differences between MCNs and third-party Roblox development companies. For starters, the game, not the creator, is the main product on Roblox. Rather than set a perpetual quota for influencer content production, as was often the case with YouTube MCNs that would burn out video makers, Roblox’s middlemen generally obtain a game that already exists and then handle further development themselves.

Watte, the person who created the game that has morphed into FIFA Super Soccer, is a college student at King’s College London, according to his LinkedIn profile. He has developed games since he was a kid. Watte has spoken positively in public posts about his experiences with Gamefam. When Gamefam helped FIFA integrate Club World Cup branding into what was then called Super League Soccer for a prior agreement, Watte wrote, “Thank you to Gamefam and FIFA for trusting us with this opportunity, and to everyone on my team for making this happen in such a short span of time.”

A spokesperson representing Gamefam declined to specify whether Watte received an upfront payment for FIFA Super Soccer, whether he gets a cut of future revenue related to the title, or whether his role as “Creative Director for FIFA Super Soccer” means he is a full-time, salaried employee.

“We partnered with the game creator to put the backing of a professional studio behind Super League Soccer,” the spokesperson wrote. “In partnership with the original game creator, Gamefam now runs the game in full and provides our live operations capabilities and brand activation expertise. The numbers continue to get better and better as we work together.”

FIFA has a rich history in video games for consoles made by major studios, and until 2022, it maintained a long-term partnership with Electronic Arts. Its breakup with EA removed FIFA from the title of EA’s hit soccer video game franchise. Afterward, FIFA president Gianni Infantino declared that “when [children play] a football simulation game, they play FIFA, it cannot be named something else.” Ahead of the men’s FIFA World Cup next summer, Infantino has been hellbent on besting EA.

FIFA worked with the studio Mythical Games on a separate, non-Roblox project that led to the release of FIFA Rivals in the Apple and Android app stores. It also has a licensing and esports deal with Konami’s eFootball, which is playable on mobile and console.

None of those endeavors, or the new FIFA Super Soccer title sponsorship, carry the same reach of EA Sports’ renamed soccer franchise EA Sports FC. Still, when taken together, they are formidable.

Overall, Roblox has a $60 billion market cap and 111.8 million average daily active users, according to a Sept. 4 financial report. Before it rebranded from Super League Soccer last week, FIFA Super Soccer averaged 1.5 million daily gameplay sessions with a duration of 11 minutes, per Gamefam, though this metric included when the same people opened the game more than once in a 24-hour period.

In the immediate wake of Friday’s name change, FIFA Super Soccer rose into the top 70 for concurrent Roblox users at 21,000, according to a spokesperson. Gamefam works with other sports organizations, including the NFL, on titles that have also made this leaderboard.

As Briceno discusses Roblox integrations with clients who ask how Gamefam’s services can lead to real-world revenue returns, he’s reminded of his own marketing work at previous career stops.

Early in a 12-year tenure at Mattel Inc., Briceno was on the other side, only YouTube was the multimedia puzzle his company was trying to solve.

“We were thinking, we’ve got to get hot,” Briceno said. “Does it drive sales? We know that TV commercials drive sales, but what are we going to do with YouTube, I don’t know if we can measure and blah, blah, blah, and all these things were happening. We said we got to invest in this, this is where the kids are. It just makes logical sense.

“It takes a while until you’re able to generate the data points and the proof points and figure out how to do it in the right way that actually drives scale or sales. … Now we are going through that process on Roblox, and we’ve seen a lot of those early data points, so it just validates what you would think is common sense.”

A Russian general was killed in a car bombing in Moscow on Monday, with investigators saying they suspect Ukrainian intelligence may have been behind the attack.

The bombing targeted Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, and he died from his injuries. He was the third senior Russian military officer to be killed in a bombing this year.

“Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” said Svetlana Petrenko, the spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that President Vladimir Putin had been immediately informed about Sarvarov’s killing.

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Sarvarov had previously fought in Chechnya and taken part in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria, according to Russia’s defense ministry.

Ukrainian forces have yet to take responsibility for the attack.

Prior to Sarvarov, Russia lost the head of its nuclear, biological and chemical protection force, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, in a similar bombing earlier this year. Ukrainian forces took responsibility for that attack.

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Russian military officer Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik was also killed by a car bombing in Moscow in April.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in the aftermath of that attack that he had received reports about the successful “liquidation” of Russian military leaders, though he did not mention Moskalik directly.

The Monday bombing comes as Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. remain in peace talks. Russian officials said they were proceeding “constructively” on Sunday, even as missiles rained down on Ukraine’s port city of Odesa.

Putin also noted on Friday that the nation’s “troops are advancing,” and expressed confidence that Russia would achieve its goals by military force if Ukraine does not accept its peace terms.

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“The goals of the special military operation will undoubtedly be achieved. We would prefer to accomplish this and address the root causes of the conflict through diplomatic means,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Prosecutors accuse the official, named as Fahad A, of torturing dozens of prisoners in jail run by Syrian intelligence.

German prosecutors have charged a former Syrian security official with crimes against humanity, accusing him of torturing dozens of prisoners at a Damascus jail while ex-President Bashar al-Assad was in power.

Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor General’s office announced the indictment on Monday, alleging the ex-prison guard, named only as Fahad A, took part in more than 100 interrogations between 2011 and 2012 in which prisoners were “subjected to severe physical abuse”.

The abuse included electric shocks, cable beatings, forced stress positions and suspensions from the ceiling, according to a statement by the prosecutor’s office.

“As ‌a result of such mistreatment and the catastrophic prison conditions, at least ‌70 prisoners died,” said the statement, noting the former guard is also charged with murder.

The official was arrested on May 27 and formally indicted on December 10.

He is being held in pre-trial detention, the German prosecutor’s office added.

Syrians have demanded justice for crimes committed under the decades-long rule of al-Assad, who was removed from power in December 2024 after a rapid rebel offensive.

The Assad regime, which was accused of mass human rights abuses, including the torture of detainees and enforced disappearances, fell after nearly 14 years of civil war.

Universal jurisdiction

In Germany, prosecutors have ⁠used universal jurisdiction laws to seek trials for suspects in crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.

Based on ‌these laws, several people suspected of war crimes during the Syrian conflict have been arrested in the last ‍few years in Germany, which is home to about one million Syrians.

In June, a court in Frankfurt handed a life sentence to a Syrian doctor convicted of carrying out acts of torture as part of al-Assad’s crackdown on dissent.

The doctor, Alaa Mousa, was accused of torturing patients at military hospitals in Damascus and Homs, where political prisoners were regularly brought for supposed treatment.

Witnesses described Mousa pouring flammable liquid on a prisoner’s wounds before setting them alight and kicking the man in the face, shattering his teeth. In another incident, the doctor was accused of injecting a detainee with a fatal substance for refusing to be beaten.

One former prisoner described the Damascus hospital where he was held as a “slaughterhouse”.

Presiding judge, Christoph Koller, said the verdict underscored the “brutality of Assad’s dictatorial, unjust regime”.