I can’t post my thoughts in Lounge because they’ve become read-only with no prior warning (i HATE deja vu man), so I’ll say here that I was pretty sure I was set on it when the new game update requirements were rolled out, but everything that’s transpired since the start of the year and especially in the last week have removed any doubts from my mind. It’s time for me to move on from Roblox.
I’ve been on this platform for 11+ years and have been actively making games since then, and it’s through playing the ocean of other games on Roblox that I made memories and friendships that I’m sure will last a lifetime. Even if the vast majority games are either literal template places or terrible copy-paste cashgrabs meant to make bank for a few weeks before dying out (“slop” as the kids say), that’s kind of part of the experience. It’s those lame games that make the good ones that much more memorable, and those actually worthwhile experiences are built on the back of a large, passionate community. When they ripped features away while refusing to listen to the overwhelming feedback of that community, and when they found themselves in yet another controversy involving their outright neglect to curb the child predation problem on their platform, I still wanted to tough it out for the sake of a community that has given so much to me.
Even then, it’s gotten to a point where I finally have to draw the line. I cannot, in good conscience, keep associating myself with a company whose CEO sees child predators as “an opportunity” and that goes to whatever lengths it can to silence and punish critics while actively sabotaging the very same people who have been responsible for its growth for the past two decades. Between lawsuits from all directions and criminal activity occurring in plain sight on the daily due to their refusal to even pretend to care (not to mention every other terrible update or whatever crap they’re throwing around about making a “dating service”), it seems like they want to do everything they can to make sure the spark I had for Roblox for so much of my life dies and never returns. To this company, their whole motto of “reimagining the way people come together” means the removal of avatar items you have owned for over a decade-and-a-half.
On the topic of the dynamic heads update: this is a prime example of what I mean when I say Roblox refuses to listen to anyone but themselves. I have never in my life seen a company more tone-deaf and out of touch with its users, and this is only one of numerous examples of such; EVERYONE is in agreement that this is a horrible idea, and I refuse to believe you don’t see the outrage. You know people hate it, but you’re going through with it anyway, and for who? Your players are taking to Twitter to place ancient Mayan curses on your CEO, and considering your stock just plummeted, I don’t think your investors are very pleased. If you truly want to let everyone “express themselves authentically”, just give them a choice between the dynamic and classic faces. Taking away the option to choose while claiming you’re trying to build a platform where people can express themselves in any way is moronic and frankly insulting.
None of this is even mentioning what I briefly brought up earlier about the child predators that thrive on Roblox. I mulled over my decision to quit Roblox for a while, and even despite everything else I’ve mentioned, my choice ultimately came down to this: between, for example, Steam–a platform whose controversies consist of admittedly questionable quality control and (less than solid) claims of being a monopoly–and Roblox–which has a long, extensively documented record showing their lack of care to do a single thing about child predation and general failure to keep its users safe it until it explodes in their face and they rush out poorly-thought changes to try and cover their ass–which would reflect better on me when deciding where to release my games? I understand that it’s impossible to 100% guarantee that there are no child predators lurking around–every online space has those kinds of people–but the difference is that those other platforms don’t tell children to use their real names when setting their public display names. Those platforms don’t invite known creeps to major community-wide events and then ban them only after several participants pull out and people yell at them about it on Twitter. Those platforms don’t see opportunistic value in users that groom and exploit children (or at the very least, they know not to say that to major news outlets).
I could go on, but I’m sure you understand. Roblox meant the world to me for so much of my life, but I now feel nothing but bitterness towards it and the people at the top. Even in the best-case scenario where David “I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-I’m-doing-anymore” Baszucki is removed of the position that he has proven he no longer deserves and Roblox gets someone new in charge who steers the ship back on course, it will have been too little too late. There is nothing keeping me here anymore and you’ve betrayed my trust for the final time.
tldr:
