Create Experiences for People 17 and Older on Roblox

i mean this is kinda cool ngl

is the chat filter gonna be 17+ too?? like allow more words to be said

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I think this is what he meant.

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I personally wouldnā€™t mind games with more realistic gore but these game wonā€™t be popular due the majority of Roblox players being kids, most developers are hesitant to invest their time and effort into creating games that would have limited appeal and returns.

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This update did not allow romantic or sexual content.

Anyways the post you are referring by david does not refer to sexual content but only romantic dating so sexual content will likely never be allowed.

However virtual dating still should not be included in the platform and it would degrade and overshadow the value of the great games and content on the platform. Anyways adding this virtual dating on the platform in the future would be quite an unfortunate and totally unnecessary addition.
Also adding them could feed in to the larger ecosystem of inappropriate games and behavior and inadvertently encourage it on the platform.
Also there are specific places for it outside of Roblox so itā€™s not quite clear what the benefit of proposing the addition of them to Roblox is.

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oh yeah. those avatars.

Kind of forgot they existed for a second, but I see the point and/or problem now.

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Ummm, actuallyā€¦ :nerd_face:

If itā€™s done with any purpose itā€™s going to be bannedā€¦for now. The day Roblox does allow that is the day that certain kinds of game are going to be released from purgatory, and I am absolutely not looking forward to that day. For now however, hereā€™s where s*x and nudity is outlawed:

image
Source: Roblox Community Guidelines for 17+ Content

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This is two separate things here:

  1. The statement "abiding by the TOS is a completely worthless statement as the TOS literally does not define sexual content.

  2. Iā€™ve had staff outright tell me that females canā€™t have cleavage after being moderated for female or female-ish characters that had about the equivalent of a ā€œBā€ cup at best modest female chests.

Iā€™m talking about female armors that were made for female characters, even a Medusa and a few other female enemies/monsters. Iā€™ve brought this up to staff so many times and the most Iā€™ve ever gotten is the suggestion to make a forum post about it. I literally gave up on having anything female in this game, itā€™s too dangerous, unless by ā€œfemaleā€ you mean a 10-year-old boy with feminine hair and clothing.

This platform is insanely sexist. A male character can wear nothing but a loin cloth and be built like the Hulk, thatā€™s cool, but if a female character has an accent on the neckline of her armor that distinguishes that she has breasts underneath and is in fact female, thatā€™s moderation for sexual content.

Yes, these are all things Iā€™ve received a moderation for. Iā€™ve literally gone back and forth with staff trying over and over to modify a model just to allow a female anything because I wanted players to be able to choose these aspects and itā€™s mind-boggling.

Not only that but itā€™s entirely inconsistent. Thereā€™s no set policy for any of this. Thereā€™s no ā€œchest has to be coveredā€ (thatā€™s not enough to do anything), no cup size, no anything. If someone somewhere in moderation decides itā€™s sexual, itā€™s sexual, and Iā€™ve been outright told by staff that the presence of breasts is essentially sexual content.

The fact that they have no guidelines on what is sexual content is a joke.

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No, nothing that out there at all.

This is just one example of many, but the most recent one I tried to get dealt with.

This is considered sexual content:

Warning! Graphic!

I mean even though sheā€™s fully clothed and the only skin showing on her whole body is her face and handsā€¦

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An incredibly uninformed response, but expected as usual.

Here are a couple of flaws in yourā€¦ whatever that response is.

  1. NSFW Sites do not display on app stores and depend on them for huge portions of their revenue.
  2. NSFW Sites do not distribute on gaming consoles or have any reporting to the ESRB.
  3. NSFW Sites are rarely owned by publicly traded companies, but when they are, they are companies whose business model is 100% built around that industry.
  4. When an NSFW site is blocked in a country, they usually donā€™t care, if theyā€™re popular enough people find a way. The more legitimate sites simply donā€™t try to operate in countries where they are illegal.

Youā€™re comparing NSFW websites to video games that have to be distributed. Iā€™m not even sure on what planet you think these two relations are comparable.

As for Steam, itā€™s clear you know nothing about this once again.

  1. Steam IS a platform. Steam is not distributed anywhere by anyone.
  2. Users who use steam download steam. You donā€™t download your steam games on iOS, Google Play, Xbox/Windows Marketplace, etc.
  3. Steam implements its own filtering to abide by international laws, something itā€™s highly possible Roblox will eventually have to start doing or expand what they are already doing in this regard. If a game is illegal or requires an ID to access in a certain country, Steam 100% does abide by the law in every nation it does business in. Steam is also the hands-down largest video game platform in the world, so theyā€™ve had a long time and have put a lot into building this.
  4. Valve, the company that makes Steam, is NOT a publicly traded company. They do not have shareholders to report to. So when they didnā€™t like the offer from app stores and told them to pound sand, there was no one to say anything about it, it was their decision.

ā€œCouldā€ Roblox implement this in a way that allows users in certain regions to not require an ID?

In theory, maybe, but since they are not their own distributor, they donā€™t even get to choose the terms for this except on their PC classic client.

Also, this is Roblox. Thereā€™s almost nothing this company ever implements right the first time and often not at all. This is like a small family business that got big, but they still run like a small family business, nepotism and all. Thereā€™s nothing about this company that is structured the way major corporations structure.

Maybe theyā€™ll get there one day but come on, this company is so far removed from the likes of Steam (Valve) that is a grossly unfair and not at-all equal comparison.

Iā€™m sorry, you have too many feelings on this and not nearly enough actual business-level understanding. You should spend more time learning how the real world around business works.

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This is legit the most extreme one Iā€™ve ever been moderated on, it was a snake lady.

I got:

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Do they at least just block the avatar/itemā€¦ and not your game/account ?

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Yeah, but I worry because Iā€™ve had a lot of moderations from a lot of stupid things and some of them I failed to get overturned. So who knows how many moderations I have piled up.

I have gotten a few temporary bans for uploading ridiculous stuff like a water specular map for a PBR map to make things look wet (in a map that rains).

I always worry that one day Iā€™ll get banned over it. When that day comes Iā€™ll simply quit developing on the platform.

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Thisā€™ll be interesting to see how it goes.

On the one hand, making games that are specifically 17+ might be good for creating a separation between games made for younger and older players, preventing situations like Meepcity parties where they overlap.

However, while I donā€™t doubt that there are a lot of 17+ users who would be interested in more mature games, I doubt many players are cool with sharing their government ID. Not to mention most developers probably wonā€™t make 17+ games anyway since thatā€™s a very narrow audience.

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In the words of the almighty sarcastic one.
ā€œAlr seems legitā€

Yeah, Roblox needs to be more specific; Iā€™ve been riding the fine line between compliant and non-compliant for a while to make what I make happenā€¦well, happen.

The TOS has a lot of loopholes, and I like this ā€œfine lineā€ in particular.

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sexual content as to when clothes on roblox get banned for being belly shaders or belly peircings

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That doesnā€™t mean online dating between players. That is specifically for narrative purposes for stories.

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Itā€™s already insane. Iā€™ve got nerve-wracking thread after thread trying to wrap my mind around what on earth this company is thinking with its moderation implementation and the only thing Iā€™ve ever come up with is that they want this idea of wholesome kid-friendly fun but they have no idea of how to properly define that, so they just put out these obscene catch-all rules and let chips fall where they may.

This is why 17+ experiences as an implementable system is a downright frightening idea.

I donā€™t trust that they will define any of this stuff. They will keep it loose and vague, developers will lose their accounts, players entering these experiences will lose their accounts, people will get bans like crazy, and eventually, it will happen to one of their golden children and theyā€™ll be like ā€œoh, maybe we should fix thisā€.

Summary

I constantly face moderation just trying to make games that ARE kid friendly. Iā€™m not trying to make stuff like was depicted above. I got a moderation strike for a non-enterable tavern sign that literally just had a picture of a frosty mug on it. This example given with the red cupsā€¦ thatā€™s a joke.

Like this whole discussion.

Here, weā€™re talking about this because weā€™re developers who have experience in this stuff.

For the 99.999%+ of Roblox that is not in this discussion, this is the kind of interpretation theyā€™re making of itā€¦

That icon alone would not pass moderation under 17+ guidelines.

The problem here is Roblox barely allows 13+ content under their 17+ guidelines. Developers are going to make mistakes and lose their accounts. Also, staff will make mistakes that costs developers their accounts. People 17+ will go in these games and say things on VC that will get them banned. Players will type on chat things that will get them banned.

The truth is Roblox doesnā€™t know how to moderate. Roblox moderation is literally the biggest joke in the entire development world. Itā€™s a serious problem that contributes to more stress and anxiety for developers than anything I can think of off the top of my head in development history.

I think if Roblox is going to put out age guidelines, they should align with ESRB guidelines, because otherwise they are deceiving everyone and causing more problems than they are doing anything good.

The Roblox community is not getting 17+ content.
We are getting countless more opportunities to lose our accounts in ā€œexperiencesā€ labeled as 17+, if that 17+ was being defined by some extreme religious group, not the ESRB or anyone who determines the age appropriateness of content.

This moderation guideline for 17+ legit reminds me of something all those groups that sued content creators for making offensive content in the 80s would deem is acceptable for 17+

What this made-up age recommendation system seems like to me is that Roblox got upgraded by the ESRB to ā€œTeenā€ which I found amusing and strange.

It seems that because of this, they have decided to make up this crazy age recommendation system, but have everything in it still fall within ā€œteenā€ guidelines, but also restrict it the way they would real 17+ content.

Itā€™s strange and bizarre and clearly indicates they donā€™t even know what they are doing.

Parents will freak out when they see 17+ experiences, regulators in other countries will freak out when they see 17+ experiences, they will deal with all the backlash of adding 17+ content to a kids platform, all while somehow managing to make it so that nothing 17+ will actually ever exist on the platform and causing countless users and developers to get banned.

Itā€™s like theyā€™re giving us the worst of both worlds.

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I feel as if the restriction on romantic content might potentially cast too wide a net. I understand curbing user interactions or, say, dating sim type games, but I think it seems overbearing to age restrict a game that, say, has a character outright stated to be in a romantic relationship with another character (especially noting that this would not be an issue in games outside Roblox with lower equivalent age ratings). Also, wouldnā€™t this imply explicitly showing a character has parents also fall under such restrictions?

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I still find that very overbearing to just age restrict a game because shows that a character had an s/o or was married. Especially noting games outside of Roblox with lower equivalent age ratings still depicting them.

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Even more bizarre because Iā€™m pretty sure Roblox has published bundles that literally would violate this moderation ruling following that logic.

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