Expand our ability to create games for different audiences

Feature Requests Website Features
#1

Before I start, I should say that this is not requesting our ability to create games with explicit content. That will never, ever, ever happen on Roblox, and it shouldn’t.

As a Roblox developer, it is currently impossible to create games that efficiently cater to different audiences. The way Roblox is setup now, everyone will be recommended games that simply do not align with their age or other demographic factors. This is down to a heap of issues. However, in my opinion, boils down to our inability to mark our games for a specific age range. If Roblox gave developers the ability to mark games for a certain age range then it would even open the doors for games that have more mature content.

Roblox’s current recommendation system and front-page is very one-sided. It doesn’t take demographics, such as age, into account. For example, I don’t think many 16-18-year-olds would want to play a game like Adopt Me. For that age range, it would make sense to recommend a game like Phantom Forces instead. Developers being able to specify an age range for their game would contribute massively to the long-term success of the game, maintaining player counts because the game is being seen by people of the correct age.

Staying on the point of recommendations, Roblox should consider taking into account the average age of people playing a game. If you can see that the average age of the player on Game A is 12-13 then don’t recommend it to someone who’s 17 years old. This works the same way the other way around. If Game B is played mostly by people 15-16 years old, that suggests that someone whos 12 years old simply won’t enjoy it as much, so don’t recommend it.

Another factor that should be taken into account when recommending games to play is using games that people of a similar age range have also played. If you can see that people 14 years old are playing Game A and Game C, but not Game B then you should prioritize the first two in recommendations.

Moving onto the point of game content, Roblox should allow developers to flag their game as 13+ or 16+. If they want to be considered a serious competitor (and choice) in the game engine market, then developers and studios need to be able to create games that cater to a more mature and target audience.

By the end of this year, Roblox will have the features it needs to truly compete with the industry-leading game engines. However, that can never happen with the current moderation practices and rules holding it back. The platform is in desperate need of reform if Roblox wants to expand to other age ranges and demographics and I think that this is a step in the right direction towards that.

Please, if I missed anything in this post, let me know! What do you think?

33 Likes
#2

I 100% agree with this. If Roblox wants to compete with other game engines and such they’re going to have to drop their “kid-friendly” image sooner or later. This is what seriously has been holding Roblox back for all these years. Tbh anything but nudity or use of drugs should be allowed. A lot of games have done pretty much anything that isn’t those two.

14 Likes
#3

It’s a lot more safe for Roblox to actually implement features to do this instead of developers adding them anyway and exposing kids to things they shouldn’t be exposed to.

6 Likes
#4

Well, if those filters are set by developers, they could say that games are designed for everyone to play, in order to hop into the front page.

4 Likes
#5

The idea is that the front page is unique to each user and is based on various different factors such as age, location, what friends are playing, what people your age are playing, etc.

2 Likes
#6

I like the idea that Roblox should recommend games to players based on their age. It would expand Roblox’s overall player audience and possibly help them take a step further in competing with industry-leading game engines. I thought that it would be great if you could go more in depth about the following.

Could you go into detail about what moderation rules and practices holds Roblox back from achieving this goal?

However, that can never happen with the current moderation practices and rules holding it back.

What about players who lie about their age when signing up? Would this expose them to games that are too mature for them? How would you deal with these types of situations?

If Roblox gave developers the ability to mark games for a certain age range then it would even open the doors for games that have more mature content.

#7

The parents should always be monitoring their kids. If the parents fail to do that then that is on them.

2 Likes
#8

You can’t do anything about that. It’s not Roblox’s problem, it’s the parents. People that argue it is their problem needs to ask themselves what Roblox should do about it? They can’t ask every kid that signs up to the site to enter their passport details to verify age, can they?

1 Like
#9

There are too many limitations when using the age of the player to determine the games that they should play. You can’t expect parents to always be over the shoulders of their children and monitor their online activity every minute. Roblox should use a different approach to recommend games to players.

You can’t do anything about that. It’s not Roblox’s problem, it’s the parents. People that argue it is their problem needs to ask themselves what Roblox should do about it?

The parents should always be monitoring their kids. If the parents fail to do that then that is on them.

Instead of using the player’s age as a way to determine game recommendations, Roblox could use an alternative method. These are some of my suggestions.

  • Add a setting to the privacy page which filters their recommended games. The only options should be Default and Friendly.
  • The Default system would use the proposed game recommendation system below.
  • The Friendly system would be automatically set for players who are under thirteen. Only Safe Games would be recommended to players with this setting.

What is the Default system?

  • Roblox should gather games that the player regularly visits and estimate the average age of players who play those games.
  • Use this estimated age to look for other popular games on Roblox that might meet their interests.

What are Safe Games?

  • Roblox can use an algorithm that gathers top games (probably 500 ranking games).
  • Get the average player age of those games and only recommend the ones that have an average player age of under thirteen or a safe age range that is determined by Roblox.
  • Safe Games should be recommended to players with the Friendly system.

This post ties in with a similar topic. The Recommended sort is terrible: How to fix it

I also don’t think developers should have the ability to mark their games for a certain age range. Many could take advantage of this feature and lie about the age range to gain more popularity as @DMCPEPlays mentioned.

If Roblox gave developers the ability to mark games for a certain age range then it would even open the doors for games that have more mature content.

1 Like