What happened 

Shares of the video game platform Roblox (RBLX -0.59%) soared today after the company reported a smaller-than-expected loss in the fourth quarter and beat Wall Street's average estimate for bookings.

The video game stock was up a staggering 24% as of 12:41 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

So what  

Roblox reported an adjusted loss of $0.48 per share, which was worse than its loss of $0.25 in the year-ago quarter but still better than analysts' consensus estimate for a loss of $0.52 per share. 

Adding to the good news today was the fact that Roblox's bookings rose 17% to $899.4 million. Not only did that figure easily beat Wall Street's expectation of $881.4 million for the quarter, but it also came at a time when other video game companies aren't doing so hot. 

The strong bookings indicate that Roblox might not be suffering as much as some of its video game peers. And CEO Dave Baszucki talked about the company's progress on the earnings call: "I want to highlight that underneath all of this progress, we focus very heavily on key drivers around sign-ups, retention, frequency, engagement, and monetization. And all of these numbers continue to be near or at all-time highs, even as we've emerged from COVID."  

Baszucki also said that while the company had to ramp up infrastructure spending in 2022 -- to $400 million -- Roblox was still "able to run the company effectively cash-flow neutral for the year." He said that capital expenditures related to infrastructure will be down significantly by anywhere from 25% to 30% in 2023. 

Now what 

Investors are extra enthusiastic about Roblox's results today because the quarter showed that the company can still grow key metrics in a post-pandemic world. 

For example, average daily active users reached 58.8 million in the quarter, up 19% year over year. And users spent 12.8 billion hours on its platform, an increase of 18% from the year-ago quarter. 

While some investors have been concerned about how a potential recession could slow down the video game industry, it appears that Roblox shareholders have renewed optimism in this gaming stock following its fourth-quarter results.