My game of 3 years is locked to 17+ forever essentially killing it

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1

My game of 3 years is locked to 17+ forever, essentially killing it.

Hello,

I am the developer of Lost Rooms, a horror game that has been on Roblox for over 3 years with a large, active community. Recently, Roblox’s moderation system automatically flagged the game and changed its maturity rating from 9+ to 17+ after the blood option was mistakenly changed.

I wanna make it absolutely clear that this happened without warning and without any popup claiming that this option would lock my game . Once a game is set to 17+, there is currently no way for a developer to revert it - - even if the content is safe for younger players.

The consequences for us have been devastating:

  • Our player count dropped from 300-400 to ~10
  • The big update we’ve been preparing had to be delayed, since most of our community can no longer access the game.
  • Player’s creations, data, and progress are now locked behind this unnecessary restriction.

For the past 2 weeks I have tried contacting Roblox support multiple times. Every response has been either automated, dismissive, or redirected me to generic DevForum/Creator Hub pages that do not solve the issue. Meanwhile, other games that were mistakenly flagged have been reverted in a matter of hours.

I want to be very clear: Lost Rooms does not contain content that justifies a 17+ rating. The game has complied with Roblox’s Terms of Service since release. At most, the visuals are comparable to other horror games rated 9+ or 13+.

This situation not only threatens the future of Lost Rooms, but also highlights how damaging it can be when indie developers spend years building something only for it to be permanently restricted by an automated moderation system - - with no fair review process.

I am asking Roblox to please:

1. Review Lost Rooms manually and reconsider its rating.
2. Provide a fair way for developers to appeal maturity settings.

We’ve built this game and community for years, and it’s heartbreaking to see it stuck like this due to what feels like a system error.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

– Morbid

GameLink: https://www.roblox.com/pt/games/9431770682/Lost-Rooms

60 Likes
2

have u done the questionnaire?

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I did, however after a game is changed to 17+ you can no longer do it to change it back.

2 Likes
4

Roblox has been cracking down hard on moderation as damage control from some recent events. I am not surprised roblox would lock a game to 17+ after it was set to it. Moreover, 17+ games aren’t playable in certain regions which limits your game’s reach even more.

They don’t handle moderation requests well due to their crazy backlog of requests and small moderation team. This makes getting help for moderation related concerns an absolute pain, and is one of my biggest issues with roblox. Getting help from a real human being that will actually handle a request longer than a few seconds, and not send you some random help article is significantly harder than it needs to be.

They prioritize their growth over the stability and safety of the platform, as the growth is what brings in the money of investors. This situation is very unfortunate, and I hope this can get reverted. I have played the game for quite some time and it deserves justice.

I hope moderation improves.

8 Likes
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Yeah 100%, its crazy how you can be working as a dev in the platform for years and get a.i. responses for weeks while seing your game and community slowly die. I’m sure if a human read the messages he’d understand this specific situation, I don’t think Roblox would dismiss a game and their community like its nothing.

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Is there any way you could publish the game content to a separate experience temporarily, and have people play that instead while you get the original experiences guidelines adjusted? That might at least give people the ability to play the game still while you get this resolved.

1 Like
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I’ll definitely do that! Atleast people can have a temporary place, I’ll set it up asap.

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Awesome. I look forward to playing it!

1 Like
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I don’t think this can happen without warning, someone has to submit the questionnaire. Either you, or a team member has done something. Recommend reviewing, getting team members to fess up, etc. There’s no way out of this one unfortunately, you should start moving to a new experience ASAP and redirect users from the old game page in all possible ways. You can bounce back, consistent 300 CCU represents a fairly loyal playerbase.

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The fact that you as a developer have no other option but to start over in a new place speaks volumes, you’re essentially sufering the same fate as getting your game banned, along with the Data of all those players, that might not want to play the game anymore (which is understandable).
Lost Rooms gives the player ability to create maps, creatures, entire experiences in the experiences, people spent days making maps using the Map Creation tools.

I’ve been making sure the game is complient with the TOS for years, but a moderator can’t change a wrong age rating.

1 Like
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Roblox been cracking down so hard, Wow!

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You forget Roblox has the power to update the maturity rating of your Experience if they find it’s inaccurate. That’s how most people receive moderation actions & Roblox is forced to change it.

It’s possible the blood content in the Experience was borderline, and that’s what caused a 17+ rating. Roblox Support is absolutely egregious in handling basic tasks, and I’ve had a similar issue attempting to recover a social hangout from being banned. They have seemingly now locked that post as it was resolved, but I never got any response or possible update on if this is something Roblox will change.

Once you’re in this situation, you’re pretty much borked and need to start all over again. Development has never been harder.

1 Like