Why Niche Games Thrive on Roblox: Croydon Bus Sim
This week on Beyond The Blox, we sat down with our co-host Anthony (sublivion) for a "meet the host" episode that doubled as a deep dive into Croydon: London Bus Simulator, the Roblox game he helps build. What started as a niche concept has become a powerful example of what I like to call the "mainstream niche" effect: the idea that Roblox's massive player base and discovery algorithm can turn even the most specialized genre into something with genuine scale.
From Guest Account to Game Developer
Anthony's Roblox journey started around 2012-2013, playing as a guest at a friend's house. He quickly got hooked on building and taught himself Lua through online guides and YouTube tutorials, long before any formal computer science education. Roblox became the gateway to physics, maths and programming, shaping his A-level choices and ultimately his university degree. It's a story we hear time and again from developers on the platform: the pipeline from player to creator is uniquely short on Roblox, and the skills you pick up along the way are surprisingly transferable.
The "Mainstream Niche" Effect
On paper, a bus simulator set in a specific London suburb doesn't sound like a recipe for mass appeal. Yet Croydon has surpassed 40 million visits, with nearly 1.4 million unique players having earned the badge for picking up their first passenger. At the time of recording, there were around 1,200 concurrent players online.
To put that in perspective, I pulled up the Steam Charts for Bus Simulator 21, one of the most well-known bus simulators on PC. Its all-time peak CCU was around 2,600, and at the time of recording it had roughly 180 players online. Croydon was comfortably outpacing it, despite being built on a platform not specifically designed for realistic vehicle simulation.
The key difference is discovery. Anthony told us the team has barely spent anything on advertising and that paid campaigns actually hurt performance: ads bring in players who aren't genuinely interested, which tanks the game's rating and causes the algorithm to stop recommending it. Almost all of Croydon's growth has been organic, driven by a strong community, word of mouth, and TikTok livestreamers who casually broadcast their bus routes to thousands of viewers.
Pushing the Platform's Limits
One of the most striking things about Croydon is how realistic it looks. The team opted for custom NPCs and high-fidelity environments rather than leaning into the typical Roblox aesthetic, a decision that frequently surprises TikTok viewers who can't believe the game is running on Roblox.
Anthony credited recent platform advancements for making this possible. 4K texture rendering and PBR materials have been the biggest visual upgrades, while SLIM (Scalable Lightweight Interactive Models) and improved server memory are enabling the team to push further. On the programming side, Parallel Luau and the typed Luau ecosystem have been valuable for maintaining a complex codebase.
Looking ahead, the team is particularly excited about Server Authority, which could improve collision accuracy and help prevent cheating in simulation servers. They're also working on a multi-place chunk system to expand the map beyond its current boundaries, a workaround for the inherent memory limits of a single Roblox place.
The Right Time for Niche Games
This episode couldn't have been better timed. Just days ago, Roblox announced its Incubator and Jumpstart programs, specifically designed to support "novel games" that push the boundaries of genre, gameplay and visual style. Croydon is a textbook example of the kind of game Roblox is now actively investing in: something that makes people say "Wait, that's Roblox?"
As Fedor put it during the episode, there's no SEO trick or magic tag that will make your game succeed. The best strategy is to build something you genuinely enjoy playing with your friends, because there are likely other people out there who will enjoy it too. With the Roblox algorithm being as good as it is, those people will find you.
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