Grow a Garden is a free-to-play multiplayer idle video game released on Roblox on March 26, 2025. In it, players tend to their garden by buying seeds and harvesting crops. The game is known for breaking multiple concurrent user (CCU) records, with at least 22.3 million players having been online on August 23, 2025. Previous CCU peaks include over 16 million on June 21, the highest ever recorded in video game history (surpassing Fortnite's 15.3 million), and over 5 million on May 17, which broke the previous record for a Roblox game. The game is co-owned by its original developer and Splitting Point Studios, a development team led by Janzen Madsen (known online as Jandel), with Do Big Studios holding a minority share.
A player on their plot with starter crops. Late-game crops are visible in the background.
Grow a Garden is a farming-themed idle game. The player begins with an empty plot of farmland among other player's farmlands, and some in-game currency called "Sheckles" (¢) to buy carrot seeds. By planting and harvesting crops, which continue to grow even while the player is offline,[1] they can earn more Sheckles to buy progressively more exotic plant seeds.[2][3] The seeds may go in and out of stock, and exclusive items are released weekly that players must be online to claim, helping to boost player retention.[4][5] To keep up with weekly events, the game has two teams dedicated to event development.[6]
Players can obtain pets by opening loot boxes.[5] Roblox's built-in premium currency, Robux, can be used to speed up waiting, gain additional perks,[1] and steal others' crops.[7] The game's aesthetics feature studded textures evocative of old-school Roblox games.[8] Classical music, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca, comprises the game's soundtrack.[9]
History
The game was created by an anonymous 16-year-old who goes by the username "BMWLux".[5][7] Jandel's Splitting Point Studios bought a share of the game in April, a time when it still had around 1,000 concurrent users. According to Jandel, the original developer owns "50% of the game", and the initial version was developed in only three days.[1] Some time later, Florida-based Roblox game development company Do Big Studios came to hold a minority share.[7][1] Do Big Studios have been criticized for introducing excessive monetization to the game.[7][10] Jandel has declined to share revenue figures,[3] though it was noted that Roblox previously listed the game as the top title in the "top-earner" category (now ranked second).[11][12][unreliable source?]
On May 18, the game released its "Blood Moon" update, breaking the previous CCU record for a Roblox game, which had been previously held by Blox Fruits.[2] Upon the release of "Bizzy Bees" update on May 31,[13] the game reached a peak of over 11.7 million CCU.[14] In June 14, the game released its "Working Bees" update, leading to a peak CCU of over 16 million.[8][1] This figure, if accurate, surpassed the highest CCU recorded in video game history, achieved by Fortnite with 15.3 million CCU in December 2020.[5][11][15] Additionally, the game surpassed CCUs of top-played games on Steam, such as PUBG: Battlegrounds and Counter Strike 2 on several occasions.[16][17] On June 21, the "Summer Update" was released, bringing new seeds, cosmetics, and events, and the day saw a peak of 21 million CCU.[15] For the game's July 26 "Corruption Update", Jandel hosted an event featuring NFL football player Travis Kelce.[18] According to RoTrends, the game's CCU record is 22.3 million, achieved on August 23, 2025.[12]
Popularity
As of August 23, the game has received over 27 billion visits, with around 7.8 million favorites.[19] It is the fastest Roblox game to have reached a billion visits.[20] Jandel has stated that around 35% of the playerbase is under 13-years-old.[5] An unofficial replica of the game can be found as a Fortnite Creative map.[21] Finance publications such as Investor's Business Daily, Barron's, and Motley Fool have partly attributed the recent rise in Roblox stock prices—including a 21% growth in June—due to the sudden surge in popularity of Grow a Garden.[22][23][24] The popularity of the game helped Roblox achieve average of 111.8 million daily active users on Q2 2025, a growth of 41 percent year-over-year. In its Q2 2025 financial report, the platform adjusted its projected 2025 bookings (customer spending) from $5.29–5.36 billion to $5.87–5.97 billion, giving its stock price another boost of 16%.[25][26]
The game averages around 3 million CCU as of June 25.[11] There have been concerns that some of Grow a Garden's player count consists of automated bot accounts. Roblox has pushed back on this idea, stating "our preliminary analysis confirms genuine popularity, not artificial inflation, validating the game's authentic community-driven growth.” Upon the game reaching 5 million CCU, investment company TD Cowen alleged that fraudulent bot activities artificially inflated Grow a Garden's visibility in Roblox's game recommendation algorithm, pointing to an "upsurge" of account creation rates in Philippines and Indonesia. However, it later retracted its claims of manipulation, while still noting the upsurge.[3][1][16] Some in-game items are only available for a short period of time during updates, which may incentivize bad actors to use bots to collect them.[2] Many players offer to exchange rare items for real-life money through unofficial avenues such as eBay or Discord, even though such practice is prohibited under Roblox's terms of service.[27]
Reception
Nicole Carpenter, writing for Game File, called the game the "new generation's FarmVille", while noting its simplicity.[16] Zack Zwiezen of Kotaku commented that the game appears more like a prototype rather than a finished game.[17] Ted Litchfield of PC Gamer noted that as an outsider, "there is a cognitive dissonance to learning that it's far more popular than any game I've ever covered or played".[1]PCGamesN listed it among the best Roblox games of 2025 but commented it was "a pretty standard AFK game" despite apparently being "hard to put down for millions of Roblox players".[28] Kieran Press-Reynolds, writing for The New York Times, noted that "there is barely any long-form content proportional to the game's success [...] this one is all short-form videos".[5]
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