Would’ve been great if the developers that take heavy advantage of the U13> ads/sponsors were warned a few weeks before but okay
9 Likes
I am assuming this change was done to prevent potential investigation/ legal trouble. There are a lot of restrictions when advertising to children, and I assume Roblox wanted to play it safe.
It is annoying that Roblox continues to lack transparency. It would make more sense if Roblox stated why they are doing this. Seems like they tried to slip it in with another update to avoid backlash.
13 Likes
This is irrelevant. Let’s not stray too off topic here eh? This is about children being targeted by advertisements and possibly taken advantage of – which would follow industry standards set my Google and other advertising giants.
5 Likes
It is nice to have a more specific target demographic that is not just 13+, but also 17+.
The update to sponsorships & user ads will definitely change things for the better.
2 Likes
This seems like a huge change to the platform, why just try to slip it in with UGC news?
30 Likes
The community as a whole asked for improvements to sponsored ads, now they’re being made even less functional? Does a massive essay with over 300+ likes, from developers both large and small, not show the need for showing sponsored tiles to younger audiences, on a platform that is largely made of a younger audience?
This only serves to hurt discoverability even further, when discovery was already in a poor state. I sincerely hope this is reverted as someone who is trying to grow a business on this platform.
81 Likes
I’m happy about Sponsored items but not about Ads won’t show up for <13. Will users <13 still be able to advertise? Because what if someone put their date wrong, they’re unable to change it. So would that mean they can’t advertise? If so, this update just got worse.
2 Likes
Good, children should not be subject to targeted advertising.
I would like to see more in depth analytics for sponsors/ ads however, as running them ATM can be a huge money sink, with very little info on how to improve your chances.
5 Likes
Before, ads & sponsors were almost useless. Unless you had a high budget, or were lucky enough to get a known youtuber to play, they did very little.
With this update, you have to have an unlimited budget to get anywhere. This is really just eliminating small creators - forcing players into the known/larger experiences. With more players in the larger experiences, more robux is spent, and Roblox makes more money 
14 Likes
I can understand Ads being removed for under 13s since they can be designed to manipulate with flashy graphics and irrelevant content… but sponsors? They take no more advantage of kids than typical game icons. I don’t see how removing sponsored ads does anything to protect children, it only hurts discoverability even further.
41 Likes
Great for those who are new on UGC community, so they can get more sales. This year Roblox rolling out cool updates to be honest.
1 Like
I’m a bit confused as to why Sponsored games/items are being removed for anyone under 13. I presumed the whole point of having a sponsored section was just to make your game more likely to be seen by users, not manipulate them. feels a bit extreme to cut them out entirely.
20 Likes
The fact we won’t be able to reach the <13+ age group on the platform, the predominant demographic of the user base, which probably takes up more than 30-40% of the platform’s total users (not sure of the actual figure but someone can correct me), is very clearly going to harm discovery.
What are Roblox going to do to mitigate the loss of impressions we receive? Roblox’s “product offering” to developers is the ability to create games and to reach the audience that Roblox has garnered over the years, so if we can’t effectively reach that audience easily anymore, then surely this change will deeply harm the discoverability of our games, and thus the Developer-Player Ecosystem on our end?
(I don’t want this post to take away from the hard work of the staff at Roblox but these changes could potentially hurt people’s livelihoods and jobs. Really interested to see a response on this)
32 Likes
Imagine an update that improves sponsered ads :0
11 Likes
Has Roblox given a direct reason for this yet? Forums? Blog post? Anywhere?
Us, the developers, can speculate all day giving links to modern policies around the world, but I think, ya know, maybe pushing updates without saying why is maybe a bad idea…
I am both for and against the idea of marketing to children. It’s a weird situation, but I ultimately think going against marketing to children is the right move. I just want an official statement on the matter as to why, clarity is always nice.
Update:
“Dave Baszucki brought [up the topic of >13 advertising] here: Spotify (at 19 minutes, 12 seconds.)”
“Roblox will most likely stop showing events if they stick to their values. If not, then that would be quite hypocritical.” - Reditect, me btw. From the link below.
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/roblox-events-shows-to-under-13s/2064856/2
6 Likes
They are only rolled out to 10% of 13+ users.
4 Likes
I’m a little confused on the ramifications of this change. What is the reason for disabling advertising to players under 13? It seems hypocritical since Roblox normally feeds off these players in sponsored events like the current Fifa World and the previous Ralph Lauren Polo event (among MANY others). The only reason you guys removed this ability seems to be for some “ethical” reason but by that token, shouldn’t all advertisements to children be blocked from the platform, no matter who makes them?
14 Likes
To be honest, they probably did it for legal reasons not ethical reasons.
13 Likes
Do the age requirements apply to users with their account age set to over 13 or are you required to verify it through id? If it’s the latter then this update effectively tanked advertising, barring 95% of roblox’s player based from impressions.
1 Like
This kills a major player base (50%) of the entire Roblox population, I noticed that the test user in Studio also has an ‘AdsEnabled’ property now, so in-game advertisements will likely not be available for under 13 players. This is a likely major revenue area (and current discovery method) that won’t function for under 13 players. If I now make a game targeted for under 13 players, there is no way for me to get my experience discovered. That’s literally the foundation of a community, getting the first players to notice, that has now been taken away from developers who make experiences with a major audience of under 13 players.
13 Likes