Roblox devs now need a subscription to share their games freely

Hi Creators,

Every day, millions of users come to Roblox to play incredible games that all of you have built. Keeping the trust of users, their parents, and the policy makers who represent them is incredibly important, and helps make sure Roblox can continue to be accessed around the world.

We know that the vast majority of you are dedicated to building high quality content that meets our Community Standards. Every day, we process billions of asset uploads submitted by millions of creators. While our existing moderation systems catch the vast majority of violations, no system is perfect and even a single infraction can cost us the trust of our community, which in turn can hurt well intentioned creators.

Today we are announcing new publishing requirements and an evaluation process to help make sure games are suitable for our youngest users, which will go into effect on May 19th. Publishing games that are available to players with either Roblox Kids (users under 9) or Roblox Select (users 9 to 15) accounts that we announced in our Newsroom will require additional verification steps than publishing games that are available to users over 16.*

While we know this is a lot of change and introduces requirements that creators didn’t have to meet before, it’ll allow us to set a new standard for the safety of games on Roblox and enable us to take stronger action on bad actors. They’ll also help us stay ahead of changing regulatory requirements, so your games can continue to be played by the millions of players that are on Roblox today.

We want to answer the questions you have about these changes; we’ll be hosting an AMA on DevForum on April 16 at 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm PDT. We’ll share more about why we’re making these changes and take your questions live.

• Exact ages of Roblox Kids and Roblox Select accounts may vary by region based on local requirements

New Publishing Requirements

You can check the status of your eligibility in your account settings to learn what actions you need to take.

• Publish for personal use - Anyone on Roblox can continue to publish games for personal use.

• Publish to 16+ and Trusted Friends - To publish a game that reaches Trusted Friends and users over 16 you must: a. Complete an age check b. Have an account in good standing c. Have an account on Roblox that’s been on the platform for at least 2 days

• Publish to all ages - To publish a game that reaches users of all ages (including users with Roblox Kids and Roblox Select accounts) you must meet the above requirements and: a. Be ID verified b. Have 2-factor authentication setup c. Have an active Roblox Plus subscription d. Your game must complete a new evaluation process (details below)

The eligibility of the game owner will be checked anytime a game is published. For groups, the group owner will need to meet the requirements for games published on behalf of the group.

Why we chose these eligibility requirements

We chose these requirements because most creators already meet many of the criteria, and they’ll make it more difficult for bad actors to bypass our moderation systems. Requirements like Facial Age Estimation and ID Verification help provide more certainty that games are being published by real people, 2-factor authentication helps protect against account takeovers, and Plus creates a financial cost for bad actors attempting to create a large number of accounts.

We saw a significant reduction in spammy/violating games from the requirements that we launched late last year, and we believe updating these requirements as described above will further reduce the number of violating games that make it through.

Free Roblox Plus for Existing Creators

We understand that adding Roblox Plus as a publishing requirement for reaching younger audiences is a significant change for creators. To make this transition easier, we are covering the cost of Roblox Plus for about one hundred thousand of our existing creators for the next 6 months. To be eligible, at least one game you own must have 100 hours of total playtime over the last 30 days (as of today, 4/13) and you must not have any major violations of our Community Standards. For group owned games that meet the criteria, the 6 months is granted to the group owner.

Eligible creators will get the full benefits associated with Plus, which you can read more on in our announcement last week. You can check if you’re eligible for the 6 months on the new publishing eligibility page, and the 6 months will start on May 19th when these requirements go live. New Plus subscriptions will also be available on April 30th.

New Evaluation Process of Games for Young Users

To ensure games are ready for young users, games published by creators who meet the ‘all ages’ requirements will go through an evaluation process. Games will first be trialed with age-checked users above the age of 16. During this process, we analyze signals like account age, play history, and platform spend to verify that engagement is genuine and isn’t derived from fake accounts or bots.

The gameplay and any reports provided by this older audience will be reviewed by the new real-time moderation system that we rolled out last month, in addition to our other safety checks that we run for every game today. These changes will provide more certainty that a game is age appropriate for younger users.

You will be able to monitor the progress of this evaluation process directly in the Creator Hub so you can keep track of your status. Once the evaluation process is successfully completed, your game will be available to users under 16, subject to individual user maturity settings and the specific content maturity ratings of your game.

Introducing the IARC Framework

As announced last year, Roblox will soon transition to the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) framework, the globally recognized standard method for assigning content ratings for digital games and apps. These clear, region-specific ratings, such as ESRB in the U.S. and PEGI in much of Europe and the U.K., reflect local cultural norms and will help families identify age-appropriate content while further reinforcing our alignment with global safety standards and local regulations. We will share more details on this soon.

FAQs

Will this make it harder for new games to grow an audience on Roblox?

These changes can lengthen the time it takes for new games without an existing audience to grow their playerbase and reach users of all ages. We’re committed to improving discovery for new games on Roblox, especially for new games that haven’t yet completed the new evaluation process, and we’ll continue to make improvements here.

An important reality here is that the potential impact of not introducing these requirements is much greater in the long term. Without these changes, the potential risk is that Roblox may not be accessible to some or all users in certain regions, reducing the total overall number of users and impacting the growth of all games on Roblox.

Is this going to make it difficult for games made for a young audience to grow?

Most engaging games on Roblox already naturally attract audiences of both older and younger users, and will receive enough engagement to complete the evaluation process. There may be some games meant purely for younger users that may take longer to complete the evaluation process.

How long does the evaluation process take? What can I do to complete the process faster?

Times vary depending on how quickly your game receives engagement from older users. The best thing you can do to expedite this process is to regularly update your game, address user feedback, and promote your game to users over 16.

We’re committed to increasing the visibility of new games on Roblox, so they’re able to complete this process faster. We’ll share more here as soon as we can.