Roku has introduced an original interactive game called Roku City Dash that turns its well-known screensaver into a playable experience. The game became available to users of Roku streaming players and Roku TVs starting today.
In Roku City Dash, players navigate through the virtual Roku City environment. They fly past familiar buildings and landmarks while encountering retro-inspired UFOs and other obstacles. The objective is to achieve high scores by avoiding collisions in this fast-paced activity. Household members can compete against one another for the top scores.
The game can be accessed by interacting with a specific building within the Roku City screensaver. It is also available directly from the Roku home screen. The new game allows participants to explore the city in an engaging way, passing various structures and discovering additional elements while pursuing higher scores. The development represents an effort to enhance platform interactivity and provide users with additional ways to engage with Roku.
Roku was founded in October 2002 by Anthony Wood, a British-born entrepreneur and electrical engineer who had previously created ReplayTV, one of the earliest digital video recorders that competed with TiVo. The company, whose name means “six” in Japanese (reflecting it as Wood’s sixth startup), initially focused on digital media players for streaming photos and music from computers to TVs.
Early efforts included products like the PhotoBridge HD1000 and SoundBridge. A pivotal moment came when Wood worked briefly at Netflix as vice president of Internet TV, leading to a close partnership. In 2008, Roku released its first streaming player, the Roku DVP N1000, in collaboration with Netflix, allowing users to stream content directly to their televisions and helping accelerate the shift from traditional cable to over-the-top internet video.
The company expanded rapidly with additional models supporting services like Amazon Prime Video and introduced the Roku Channel Store in 2009, creating an app ecosystem for developers. By the early 2010s, Roku had established itself as a leader in affordable streaming devices. In 2014, it entered the smart TV market through licensing deals with manufacturers such as TCL and Hisense, enabling the production of Roku TVs that integrated the platform directly into television hardware.
Roku went public on the Nasdaq in September 2017 at an initial valuation of about $1.3 billion, with shares surging on the first day of trading. The company has since grown into a major streaming platform, reaching over 100 million active households worldwide by 2026. Its business has evolved from primarily hardware sales to a robust advertising-driven model, including The Roku Channel (launched in 2017) and advanced ad technology. Roku now operates as the leading TV streaming platform in North America, with international expansion into markets like Canada, the UK, and Latin America, while continuing to innovate in both devices and platform services.
The Roku City screensaver debuted in 2018 as the default idle display on Roku devices. It features a vibrant, looping nighttime cityscape filled with Easter eggs referencing classic films and pop culture. Over the years, the screensaver has gained a dedicated fan following for its whimsical design and has been updated with higher resolution, new elements like a train station, refreshed visuals, and occasional advertising integrations. The addition of the UFO piloting game marks the first major interactive feature for the beloved screensaver.
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