Parent issues warning after Roblox removes some age restrictions

Roblox age restrictions have been lifted for a set of controversial games, and one parent recommends deleting your child’s Roblox account

Roblox age restrictions are supposed to help protect younger players from games that may expose them to violent or sexual content, but industry personality Carolyn “Velociraptor” says that’s no longer the case. After seeing some of the most popular games on the PC gaming platform – so-called “toilet simulators” – and the content they contain, she strongly cautioned other parents to check what their children are playing on Roblox or just delete the accounts entirely.

The games in question are multiplayer experiences that “simulate” a public bathroom. Players enter a stall, remove the bottom half of their clothing, and the toilet turns yellow or brown. It’s seemingly innocuous – except they also encourage voyeurism and other adult behavior. Carolyn shared a video where her pantless character slipped on the bathroom floor and remained stuck in a lying position – apparently a common occurrence in these games – while other players repeatedly walked into her bottom half or crouched on it, seemingly imitating non-consensual sex.

In other instances, players would slip into a toilet stall before the door closed and watch the Roblox avatar remove their pants and use the toilet. One game even encourages players to take photos of other characters in the toilet stalls

Carolyn said she expects some level of inappropriate behavior in online multiplayer games. However, the problem is that Roblox says it manually curates all of its games and still approved these for all age groups, along with other experiences, such as horror games marketed to younger players where the goal is stabbing a popular cartoon character to death.

A Roblox developer told her in response to the concerns she raised that the team can’t control user behavior. The ESRB also cautions consumers that their ratings don’t extend to online interactions, though they do anticipate potentially problematic content based on what actions the game has players taking. In other words, if a game encouraged players to take photos of others using the toilet, it would certainly show up in the rating.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

[mm-video type=video id=01gd3t84knv0fg9t37kn playlist_id=none player_id=01gp1x90emjt3n6txc image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gd3t84knv0fg9t37kn/01gd3t84knv0fg9t37kn-f780752a035bc5a16dc5c390ca51743f.jpg]

[listicle id=1408280]