![]() That is a bigger takeaway than the bathrooms. The bigger concern is the change itself, which seems to suggest that Roblox has more-or-less (in Carolyn's words) "intentionally offloaded some responsibility". So it's inarguably in developers' interests to try and avoid those restrictions, purely because if you don't get that "all ages" rating then your audience is severely limited. "Some developers seem to have felt pressured to answer the survey in a way that would earn the all-ages rating, since age-gating locks out significant portions of the Roblox user base". This all changed when Roblox decided to put the responsibility on developers, having them fill out a survey to determine their game’s age rating, and then using those ratings for the new parental control system. "One thing I do have to clarify from my thread (after speaking with several Roblox developers) is that the way Roblox enacted parental controls has changed," writes Carolyn, "several months ago, restricted accounts were only allowed a list of games manually selected by Roblox (mostly tycoons, building simulators, not many RP experiences). I contacted Carolyn Velociraptor on Twitter, who since her observations went viral has been dealing with some pushback from elements of the Roblox fandom. ![]() Apparently they just don't care anymore". "As more parents started using the age-gated restriction settings, it creates a problem: fewer active players engaged with the platform's highest-grossing experiences (which are impossible to actually make safe for kids). "I've been wondering why Roblox would suddenly approve thousands of games (especially NSFW-ish games like RP worlds) for kids age 8 & under," writes Carolyn, and references some of the reporting on Roblox Corp's exploitation of developers on the platform. But as soon as you see the examples of what's going on in the Roblox bathroom games, it is clear this is nightmare fuel and not something children should be seeing. In theory, would I have a problem with one of my kids playing a daft videogame where the character could pee and poo? Nope. The bathroom games are a perfect example of why children and user-generated content can be such a bad mix, and the boundaries can get so blurred. And the bathroom games are just one strand of this problem: Survive Pepa Piggy is apparently for all ages, with a nightmarish header image of a bloodied Daddy Pig having been stabbed in the gut (Peppa Pig survival games are their own entire genre on Roblox). Carolyn picks out other examples of this "creep factor", including a bathroom game in which users can trap each other in stalls and take photographs.
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