Roblox's Hyped 17+ Update Isn't Full of Sex and Drugs, But It's Much Worse: Boring
How do you feel about fighting a blocky version of Andrew Tate? Good grief.
Roblox recently took a big step towards embracing its older audience with “17+ experiences,” which allow realistic violence, depictions of alcohol, and even—gasp—“non-sexual expressions of love or affection.” (Characters can briefly kiss or hold hands, but it’s not making Roblox pornographic.) I wrote about what this new world might look like, but now we can go further: 17+ experiences are live on Roblox.
How far were players going to push these content boundaries? Would people attempt to transform this into the much joked about “sex update”? Is this an all new Roblox?
The answer, so far, is Roblox’s 17+ experiences are boring.
Do you want to play an crappy action game where you “fight” Andrew Tate, the professional misogynist facing charges of human trafficking and rape? Do you want to explore many broken and clearly unfinished worlds meant to capitalize on being early to the 17+ experience category, meaning there’s a high chance of player visibility?
You can argue that it’s early days, but it’s not a great look.
Here’s everything available in the 17+ category at the moment:
Roblox did not respond to my request for comment about how Roblox feels about the launch of the 17+ experiences, if there are any 17+ experiences the company considers standouts (it did not launch anything official to show it off, leaving its launch entirely in the hand of creators), and whether the added moderation has proved challenging.
“So far 17+ experiences have been fairly lackluster, most of them are like existing experiences just with the 17+ label slapped on,” said Duncan Imperium, a Roblox creator who launched one of the more popular (and importantly, not broken!) 17+ experiences, a bar hangout space called Drink.
Drink, a goofy bar experience where players can tell jokes on stage and press a button that prompts their blocky character to drink and pass out, is early in development.
Duncan made Drink for two reasons. One, just because. It’s a new thing that Roblox is promoting. Two, he’d already built a “dizziness system” for Roblox, and one of the new content guidelines involved letting experiences include the presence of and drinking of alcohol. But mostly, Duncan’s been spending his time moderating Drink.
“It’s attracted some bad actors who, despite being adults, proceed to act as immature children, portraying racist/lgbtq+phobic/edgy behavior,” he said. “Me and a friend have spent a fat chunk of time moderating the game and it’s by no means fun to do since these people shouldn’t be doing this kind of stuff in the first place.”
While largely a goof and absent anything resembling deep mechanics, Drink has thought behind it, and Duncan’s an experienced Roblox developer. (Duncan’s been running the popular Databrawl for five years.) Many of the current options for people seeking adult content on Roblox, however, are simpler: 17+ experiences that pitch themselves more as a place for older folks to hang out, instead of being a good “game.”
“They wanna meet fellow adults and not be surrounded by a horde of little timmy’s yelling about skibidi toilet or whatever,” said Duncan.
“17+ Apartment Roof.” “[17+] Boys & Girls Hangout!” “[17+ Only] Vibe & Chill”
These places sound like horny young dudes hoping some girls will come hang out, but if you believe Roblox when it says 38% of its daily users are over the age of 17, it makes sense some folks would be seeking spaces where other people are in their age group.
The question, then, is do they want to Vibe & Chill? Hard to say. So far, no.
Some games, it seems, are under the 17+ branding by accident. UFO Race, a cute racing game about driving clunky spaceships, doesn’t seem inappropriate for children.
“I probably accidentally turned it on,” said the game’s creator Mark, who goes by Dinal online.
Mistake or not, Mark doesn’t know how to turn it off.
Young adult horror in the vein of Five Nights at Freddy’s is popular on Roblox, so it’s also not shocking to see people pushing the line further on 17+. But the reason characters like Piggy and Daring the Doll are so popular with kids on Roblox, YouTube, and other platforms has nothing to do with violence. It’s spooky, not bloody.
Frozen Story!, which claims to be “very child friendly” and “a story that is exactly like the movie,” and “not a horror game,” is obviously being cheeky, because otherwise it wouldn’t be in 17+. Though it’s not filled with jump scares and plush dolls running around with knives, it does tell a version of the Disney tale where Anna and Elsa are responsible for the deaths of their parents, end up in prison, and kill a lot of people.
I don’t think that was the plot of Frozen 2, but hey, it’s been a few years.
Over and over, horror and horror-adjacent experiences are what drive a lot of these platforms, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the case here, too, over time.
None of these experiences are, at the moment, unavailable on Apple devices. There’s a big green stop sign when trying to launch them. Roblox did not respond to a request about when this might change, and if the holdup is on Apple or Roblox’s side.
Apple devices are obviously popular, but it’s also the case that Roblox, by design, has made accessing 17+ experiences difficult. It’s not as simple as a parent providing permission through the app, or changing your birthday on your profile page and giggling like most of the internet. Anyone who wants to engage with Drink or Frozen Story! needs to submit a government ID to Roblox. The downside of proper security for the 17+ experiences means the people likely to be the most interested in checking them out—aka kids under the age of 17—cannot. The system seems to be working.
Roblox will not live or die based on 17+ experiences being an early success, and Roblox would continue to be popular if it only relied on grabbing new young people. I can tell you from personal experience that Roblox remains a very powerful draw.
But if Roblox wants to remain relevant in the lives of older players, this will need to get better, because hanging out in the spaces where you grew up eventually gets old.
Also:
Roblox “growing up” probably looks more like this, but maybe I’m wrong. It seems more likely Roblox tries to keep people in the ecosystem, and is less concerned about whether the games they’re playing “look” like Roblox games.
In our house, we’re mixed on the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. Depending on the day, my daughter thinks she’s brave enough to watch it. I’m guessing it’s a no.
Letting 17+ games include drinking, but not smoking or sex, rules. It’s very clear the content guidelines are being led by American’s paradoxical prudishness.
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Could we possible see Spookin with Scoops: Roblox 17+ Edition in the furture lol
2 Dragon Ball Roleplay games in the 17+ category. Talk about market competition.