Question regarding console requirement: no "In-Game Messaging (Text Chat)"

[Defegne]

Do I have to disable the pre-made roblox chat for my game to be eligible for release on console? Or can I just leave it on and roblox will handle it for me depending on the player?

[catgirlin_space (Rosalina Saige)]

I think the default chat is automatically disabled if I remember right. If you’re using custom chat then you’ll need to do your own checks.

[Wsly]

Not having text chat enabled used to be something that was checked before games were added to the Featured sort on Xbox, and as a result many games have it disabled. However, some games with custom chats have it enabled to this day and have been or are still featured on Xbox.

It seems like “No text chat” was added as a requirement only recently. You now have to agree with this requirement in order to publish your game to be played on Console.

Which means that you would need to disable your custom chat systems before being able to release on Xbox. If you’re not forking the chat scripts / using a custom chat system, Roblox should handle this for you and you will be fine.

The Devhub page for ‘Xbox Guidelines’ lists all the requirements to get your game featured.

Xbox Guidelines

[WonderfulDoob2 (Scales)]

Do I have to do it if the chat is enabled but not essential?
I have a place that relies on using text-boxes is that eligible?

[ShadokuSan]

I’m glad I looked this up and found this post. I was almost about to try making a chat that works for console.

But why on earth would they disallow it specifically for console? I’ve known communication to be very important in many roblox games. Do some things simply not work on console; figured it’d be a little hard to make it work comfortably due to lack of many buttons like a keyboard has or a touch screen like mobile devices?

[colbert2677 (ImagineerColbert)]

There is a staff response about this situation. It has something to do with meeting Xbox Requirements.

See:

Xbox players can no longer chat, resulting in major loss of playercount

Hey Cindering, Recently, we have been working closely with Xbox to ensure that the Roblox platform is meeting Xbox Requirements. This change was made yesterday, and we are still preparing communication to announce to the wider community. We will also be making changes to the Developer Hub Xbox page to reflect this information. As your players discovered this means that text chat is no longer available. You did mention in this post that there are other features that accept custom input that are…

[lagnis7859 (Master_Oogway)]

Just to make sure so that Roblox doesn’t take my game down later and other people having the same question can get a straight answer, can I agree with the console requirements even if my game fits all requirements of the console but has default bubble chat enabled?

[Wsly]

Default chat (including default bubble chat) is CoreGui and Roblox will automatically take care of platform requirements for those. Therefor, if Roblox doesn’t allow bubble chat to be displayed on Xbox, they will ensure chat bubbles don’t appear above players.

You’ll only have to ensure you meet this requirement if you modify the default (bubble)chat or fork any chat scripts, at which point it becomes your responsibility. But as long as you’re using the unmodified default core scripts, you’re good!