Over the last few months, online gaming platform Roblox has launched several significant updates that heavily impact player experience. The Roblox Corporation, run by founder and CEO David Bazsucki, has faced immense backlash from longtime players for these new features. Most notably, the company has introduced new facial age check requirements for chatting and the conversion of all Classic Heads and Faces to Dynamic Heads. As an avid player of Roblox for the past nine years, I believe that these unwanted changes are hurting the game and player experience.
Roblox is one of the most popular games among young children and teens, with the company reporting that half of the U.S. population under the age of 16 is on the platform. Due to its young audience, Roblox has been a common target for predators, leading to the platform being hit with several lawsuits regarding child safety over the past year.
To combat this pressing issue, on January 7, Roblox Corporation rolled out AI-powered age checks through third-party processor Persona. This age verification process is mandatory for users who wish to chat on the platform and sorts them into age-designated groups that determine who they are able to communicate with. Users in each age group are able to chat with users in the groups directly above and below theirs. For example, users age 9-12 can chat with users in their own group, as well as those in the under 9 and 13-15 groups.
Additionally, on January 29, the platform announced an update to players’ avatars. One key feature of Roblox avatars are the heads or faces. With this new update, Roblox is transitioning from static and 2D “Classic” heads with a single expression to “Dynamic” heads, which are more expressive, 3D, and capable of facial animations such as blinking or talking. According to Roblox, the update, which plans to be completed this February, allows new opportunities for all creators by “providing a single system that enables you to build for everyone and earn from everywhere” while allowing every user to “express themselves authentically.”
I believe that both of these updates have negatively impacted Roblox’s platform and the experience of its users and are contributing to the game’s incipient downfall. The dynamic heads update has proved problematic for many Roblox content creators who receive substantial income from creating unique faces, clothing, and accessories that other players can purchase on the platform using the game’s digital currency, Robux. This update shows a lack of care and respect for these content creators, who now are having many of their creations forcibly removed from the game. It also demonstrates the Roblox Corporation’s failure to acknowledge and respect the opinions and requests of its audience, who, like me, predominantly dislike the dynamic heads update.
But more importantly, the chat-based update has taken a serious toll on player experience in-game. This change is clearly well-intentioned as an active step towards protecting the safety of children who use the platform. However, the update has decimated chat activity. In fact, one Roblox game developer reported that the chat activity on their game had declined by an average of 50 percent within the first week of the update’s launch.
Although the chat update has mostly succeeded in limiting unsafe interactions between children and adults, it has created a new problem for Roblox users. Players of all ages are still placed in the same servers, despite the fact that many of them are unable to view each others’ messages with the new chat restrictions. This has complicated player experience by hindering communication and collaboration between users, which are crucial parts of many Roblox games, which has frustrated many longtime players.
To continue to protect children’s safety while also creating a smooth experience for players, Roblox developers should also divide servers by age group to make sure that players in the same server are actually able to talk and play with each other.
If Roblox wants to maintain its immense popularity and global success for years to come, it must continue to adapt to the needs of its player base. This means that the corporation must also thoroughly listen to the demands of its audience before and after altering their in-game experience in order to keep the game enjoyable and fun for all.
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