Is it okay to rebuild Pripyat in Roblox?

I guess I’m back at it.

Is it okay, as per the Terms of Service, to rebuild Pripyat and Chernobyl in Roblox?
The way I have it in mind, would be to build it to be used as part of a mission in a game, that occurs in modern times (way after the Chernobyl incident).

However, I’ve seen people get their games taken down before for having games related (even if by very little) to real place / real life events.

Would this mean I couldn’t build Pripyat in Roblox?

Thanks in advance.

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There are still D-Day games on Roblox as well as games that attempt to imitate countries so I don’t see why there should be a problem with rebuilding Pripyat.

I also don’t think that this breaks the Terms of Service so you should be fine.

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This falls into a bit of gray area in the Community rules that’s up for interpretation to an extent.

The rules state:

Overly violent content and/or content related to tragic current events or circumstances. We do not allow such content, including:

Atrocities, massacres, and other shocking real (or pseudo-real) world events; and
Extreme violence, physical or psychological abuse.

You’ll be fine. I would imagine it’s been long enough since the incident that moderation wouldn’t mind. And as @CroatiaSwitzerland pointed out, there are multiple World War 2 games that are set in an arguably more “shocking” time.

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To echo the others - it should be fine for most things.

If you were making a zombie game, a nuclear disaster game, a nuclear powerplant game, anything with any sort of deformities on the character, etc. then it would be an instant no, as that goes beyond just using it as a map, and starts leaning towards recreating the events or sensationalising them. For any families or individuals affected by the initial event or the fallout which caused issues for future generations too, it would be shocking and upsetting for any of those types of games to occur there.

The WWII games are always a bit of a fine line, but again if they singled out a specific town and event and in any way replicated it I think there would be a problem.

Where possible, keep it generic. And avoid replicating the disaster itself and any of its consequences to individual humans.

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To stay on the safe side of moderation, I would avoid making this kind of game. It’s easy enough to get moderated without poking around at the very edge of the rules.

That’s not really relevant here, since the rules don’t say exclusively shocking current events (there’s an and/or). “Current events or circumstances” could be taken to mean either “current events or current circumstances” or “circumstances or current events,” which adds onto the rule’s vagueness.

If somebody wanted to make a Holocaust game focused on the actual Holocaust part rather than the war, I’m pretty sure this rule would be used as a reason to prevent them. This is even more recent than that, and there are way more people still alive who would have been around at the time of Chernobyl than people who actually remember WWII.

Other games (potentially) breaking rules is also not great reasoning for doing so, since they don’t necessarily have permission. It’s always possible these games just haven’t been punished yet. Just to be safe, it’s better to follow the rules as they’re written rather than in the context of what games already exist on the platform.

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But there’s clearly some gray area with this. Recreating the Holocaust and building Pripyat are completely separate things.

As @BanTech pointed out, wouldn’t it be fine for OP just simply build Pripyat and nothing blatantly shocking and insensitive? There would obviously be problems with recreating the disaster itself or showing the full-scale effects of it, but that’s not what OP is doing. It’s set in modern day, and is potentially simply being used as a map for a game.

If I were to make a fake city that resembles Pripyat, in that there are destroyed buildings or other explicit details, would that also not be allowed? The rules mention “pseudo-real” events. If that were the case, why aren’t the After the Flash games taken down?

I think your example of the Holocaust is a bit of an exaggeration. I’m sure you can agree with me that the Holocaust and Chernobyl, while both tragic events, are fundamentally different incidents. I would completely understand why games depicting the Holocaust would be banned, and maybe even Chernobyl to an extent, but OP is simply recreating the city. No harm done there if OP is simply using it as a map and not part of a larger plot or over sensationalizing things.

Counter Blox is theoretically dancing around this rule, but it isn’t banned. It’s been a game and running for years at this point.

I get your point that it’s better stay on the safe side of rules, and that other games potentially breaking them isn’t an excuse, but there’s not really a fine line here. It’s hard to “follow the rules as they’re written” when the rule is debatable. I would love a clear clarification of this rule because I’ve been considering making a WW2 based game where players would participate in real battles - It’d be a real shame if I can’t because of this rule.

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People are moving back to Pripyat and things are ever so slowly recovering from Chernobyl.

Apart from those facts you’ve basically answered your own question:

So why take the risk? They don’t hold developers hands, they just delete your work. Even if the topic is grey area, any random mod can delete your hard work for the smallest thing. We are on our own both creating and losing our hard work. No one at Roblox will even blink an eye if that happens.

Pripyat has a very unique look… the reactors with the town and ferris wheel nearby. If I was a mod and recognized it, I’d only associate it with the disaster.

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To clarify, you are building a current version of the town? Like how it looks today (or similar)? To use as a backdrop for a mission in your game?

I believe that would be fine as your are simply building a setting and not highlighting a tragedy.

This is what I would be doing. It wouldn’t be highlighting the disaster.

I just wanted to clarify if it’s allowed or not, as despite representing real locations a lot of games still exist such as the white house in Roblox.

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We’re obviously not going to know the answer for sure. If you really want to know, probably reach out to DevRel.

I personally don’t see any issue with it, but I also don’t enforce the rules so idk.

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