Roblox has been in the limelight the past couple of days thanks to Steal an Egg, a pet-raising simulator that encourages users to continuously doomscroll through reels while running on a virtual treadmill Black Mirror-style – or, well, used to encourage.
Used to, because Roblox actually deplatformed the game yesterday following folks' outrage online over Steal an Egg's encouragement of short-form video overconsumption (you know, doomscrolling). At first, users weren't sure why Roblox removed Steal an Egg – but now, it all makes sense.
The company explains its reasoning in a new post, confirming that it won't allow Roblox to host such games any longer. So, what do we mean by "such" here? Well, games that encourage doomscrolling, basically.
"Effective immediately," as the Roblox developers write, "games will not be allowed in Roblox Kids and Select if they combine all of the following: A media feed (short-form videos, images, or story-style posts). A feed that autoplays, loops, or scrolls on its own. A reward, or implied reward, for continued watching."
The devs conclude with their reasoning here: "Rewarding users to consume a continuous feed of content without natural stopping points is not appropriate for younger users."
They specify what kinds of games and what sort of content isn't okay further, then, but it's safe to say that this was a pretty decent move on the Roblox team's part. Between Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot, there's already plenty of mind-melting content to fall under the spell of, anyway.
Comments show users happy to see the change, too. "This is incredible," reads one. "I am extremely glad that the team is making changes in response to creator and community feedback. I really appreciate how fast this change was made as well."
Another replies, "This is a genuine breath of fresh air to see Roblox actually making good decisions for the health and quality of the platform instead of whatever will pump the stock up."
The comments make sense here, considering past statements from the company, like CEO Dave Baszucki's instructing parents to simply not "let your kids be on Roblox" when they raised concerns… and seeing as it's basically the biggest gaming platform in the world now.
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