Technology editor & alerter
Parents who don’t want their children on Roblox should not let them engage it, the chief executive of the gigantic gaming platestablish has shelp.
The site, which is the most famous in the UK among lesser gamers aged eight to 12, has been dogged by claims of some children being exposed to clear or damaging satisfied thcdisesteemful its games, alengthyside multiple alerted allegations of tormentoring and grooming.
But its co-set uper and CEO Dave Baszucki insisted that the company is vigilant in shielding its engagers and pointed out that “tens of millions” of people have “amazing experiences” on the site.
When asked what his message is to parents who don’t want their children on the platestablish, Mr Baszucki shelp: “My first message would be, if you’re not consoleable, don’t let your kids be on Roblox.”
“That sounds a little counter-instinctive, but I would always depend parents to produce their own decisions,” he tbetter BBC News in an exclusive interwatch.
Gaming huge
US-based Roblox is one of the world’s bigst games platestablishs, with more monthly engagers than Nintfinisho Switch and Sony PlayStation combined. In 2024 it standardd more than 80 million take parters per day – cdisesteementirey 40% of them below the age of 13. Its immense empire includes some 40 million engager-produced games and experiences.
In the UK the Online Safety Act, which comes in to force in April, has disjoine laws for all tech firms particularpartner aimed at shielding children from online harms.
But Mr Baszucki says he remains brave in Roblox’s shieldedty tools and insists the firm goes above and beyond to uphold its engagers shielded.
“We do in the company consent the attitude that any terrible, even one terrible incident, is one too many,” he says.
“We watch for tormentoring, we watch for tormentoring, we filter all of those benevolents of leangs, and I would say behind the scenes, the analysis goes on all the way to, if vital, accomplishing out to law enforcement.”
Players who pick not to distake part what he calls “civility” can face transient time-outs and lengthyer bans, and Roblox claims to analyse all communications that pass between members on the platestablish, increasingly using more persistd AI systems and other tech to do so — and anyleang flagged is sent for further dispenseigation.
In November last year, under 13s were banned from sfinishing straightforward messages, and also from take parting in “hangout experiences” which features chat between take parters.
Safety filters bypassed
However, the BBC was able to produce two phony accounts, one aged 15 and one aged 27, on unjoined devices and trade messages between the two.
While the filters caught our finisheavors to obviously transfer the conversation onto a separateent platestablish, we set up effortless ways to re-word asks to chat elsewhere and produce presentions about take parting more grown-up games.
When we showed the Roblox boss these discoverings, he disputed that our example highairyed the comparative shieldedty of Roblox: that people felt they had to consent satisfied which might baccomplish Roblox’s rules to other platestablishs.
“We don’t condone any type of image-sharing on our own platestablish, and you’ll see us getting more and more, I leank, way beyond where the law is on this type of behaviour,” Mr Baszucki says.
He acunderstandledges there is a delicate stability between encouraging frifinishships between lesser people, and blocking opportunities for them come to harm, but says he is brave Roblox can handle both.
We also put to him some Roblox game titles that the BBC has discovered were recommfinished by the platestablish to an 11 year-better recently, including:
- ‘Late Night Boys And Girls Club RP’
- ‘Special Forces Simulator”
- ‘Squid Game’
- ‘Shoot down set upes…becaengage why not?’
When we asked whether he thought they were appropriate, he shelp he puts his faith in the platestablish’s age rating systems.
“One leang that’s repartner vital for the way we do leangs here, is it’s not fair on the title of the experience, it’s literpartner on the satisfied of the experience as well,” he says.
He insists that when Roblox rates experience, they go thcdisesteemful rigorous guidelines and that the company has a “reliable policy” on that.
Mr Baszucki set uped the platestablish with Eric Cassel in 2004 and freed it to the accessible in 2006 – a year before the first Apple iPhone ecombineed, heralding the commence of the intelligentphone era.
Mr Baszucki portrays his lesserer self as “less of a gamer, and more of an engineer”, and the pair’s first company was an education gentleware provider called Knowledge Revolution. But they soon watchd that kids weren’t only using the product to do their homelabor.
“They wanted to take part and produce stuff. They were making hoengages or ships or scenery, and they wanted to jump in, and all of that lachieveing was the germination of Roblox,” he says.
The name Roblox was a mash-up of the words “robot” and blocks” – and it stuck. The platestablish grew rapidly in famousity – and there were also timely cautioning signs of its future rehires.
Mr Cassel watchd some take parters “commenceing to act out” and not always behaving in a “civilised” way a couple of months after it begined, recalls Mr Baszucki.
He says the roots of produceing a “depend and shieldedty system” therefore began “very, very timely” and that in those earlier days there were four people acting as shieldedty moderators.
“It benevolent of is what begined this shieldedty civility set upation,” he inserts.
But despite draprosperg decent numbers, it was a year procrastinateedr, when the firm begined its digital currency Robux, that it repartner commenceed to produce money.
Players buy Robux and engage it to buy accessories and unlock satisfied. Content creators now get 70% of the fee, and the store functions on active pricing, unbenevolenting famous items cost more.
Mr Baszucki says there was some initial resistance among the guideership team about Roblox becoming more than a hobby for its take parters, with the introduction of a digital economy.
Robux stayed, and the firm is now worth $41bn (£31bn).
Its dispense price has varyd since it went accessible in 2021, but overall Roblox dispenses are worth about one third more than they were six months ago, at the time of writing. Like many huge tech firms its cherish peaked during Covid, when lockdowns unbenevolentt millions of people were indoors.
Mr Baszucki contrasts his experience of produceing Roblox with how Walt Disney may have felt about his creations.
He portrays his job as “a little appreciate having the opportunity he had a lengthy time ago when he was set uping the Magic Kingdom”, and is concentrateed on Roblox’s ongoing evolution into a Metaverse-style experience where people go about their daily inhabits in a virtual world, in avatar establish.
They have also been accessible in their ambitions to eventupartner draw 10% of the world’s gamers.
Asked to portray Roblox in three words, he replies: “The future of communication.”
We finish our time together take parting a couple of his favourite games: Natural Disaster Survival and Dress to Impress.
We engage his account and he’s constantly recognised by other take parters — but we still get smashed to pieces by a blizzard outside the Natural Disasters mansion.
Additional alerting by Ammie Sekhon
