Continuing an appeal for my game

Please note: all_clients is my primary account. I can’t post on it because it has a low devforum rank, so I’m using this other account instead.

I have a game called kill npcs or something. It’s a PvE shooter game where you can shoot NPCs and enemies, and it averaged 600 CCU.

my game's description

a game where you use a set of firearms and tools to fight npcs, police and military bases upon a round system. every round you earn “medals” which lets you buy more tools that expand your armory. each server is has its own map, and in private servers you may configure the server to break the game or whatever.

On September 19th, it was banned for “violating our Community Guidelines: Real-World Sensitive Events”. This is the first time one of my games has been taken down, so I wrote an appeal stating that I believed it didn’t contain any references to “Real-World Sensitive Events”. The next day it was denied with the template message: “After reviewing all the available evidence the consequence for this conduct will not be adjusted.”

Since I couldn’t figure out specifically what in my game was the issue, I asked them: “I would like to inquire about which—if any—sensitive events found to have been referenced in my experience”. They responded 4 days later on the 24th stating that “[NPCs showed] signs of distress … as well as unarmed or defenseless … (sign of mass shooting) which is not allowed at Roblox”. These concepts have been a part of my game for years, but even so—the “signs of distress” were lighthearted and the npcs did have defense in the form of police, swat, etc.

I didn’t want to directly argue with support, so instead I complied by removing “signs of distress” and adding more weapons to NPCs. By the next day (25th), I sent an email stating that these changes were complete and asked for the game to be unbanned. It took them until this afternoon ( 7 DAYS! )—October 2nd—to reply with: “…due to the severity of the violation committed, it is not eligible for reopening.”

I was honestly shocked when I read this because when I was notified of the moderation, they only gave my account a warning so I just assumed it wasn’t “severe” in any way. But then I searched it online with quotes and realized It was another template response. I’m quite relieved they hadn’t deliberately typed that insisting that my game was a “severe violation” of TOS.

So now I’ve written another email draft asking for reconsideration on reinstating my game, but I don’t know if I should follow through as it’ll just take another week to likely get another template “No.” response. But another week has been bothering me for a different reason: It’s already been 13 of the 30 days you are allowed to appeal a moderation action. So if they keep down the pace, I could only email them another 2 times before ineligibility of appeal.

This game means a lot to me and some of my loyal players are worried too. I appreciate any guidance to successfully appeal.

This is my first topic on the devforum, if I made a mistake (e.g. wrong category) please let me know!

2 Likes


idk man

im just watching vids of gameplay and while yeah its been up for some time i could totally see why this would get taken down.

the people left counter, a fair amount of (unrealistic) blood, and unarmed NPC messages like: “run”, “please stop” and “im innocent!” are definitely roblox red flags

i am assuming all of this info from online youtube vids by the way

Yeah I know this..

But the counter just helps the user know when the next round will start and the blood was never a problem. The chats had a linear progression and usually ended in a humorous way:

              "please no",
              "i have a family",
              "including...",
              "well, me?"

Also I removed these in later versions of the game.

Even when these could all be valid reasons for a take down—I have a sunk cost. I’ve spent a lot of time developing this game and more people actually seem to liked it over time. I don’t think the game should just end here.

I doubt it will get reinstated.

Not to imply that banning games about harming fake NPCs, while allowing games that are harmful towards real people - games with predatory gambling mechanics aimed at small children, dark patterns, and other similarly sinister and manipulative game design elements - is reasonable.

It would be a bit silly to treat a game about shooting lego people as some kind of critical moral tipping point. But even so, realistically, your appeal is unlikely to succeed.

Could you rework and upload a new version of the game where you gun down something like robots or aliens, using your existing scripting and building?

I’ve had this testing place up since 2023. It also includes the updates I said.

I’ll look into repurposing the game sometime later.