Roblox earlier this year made face recognition-based age verification mandatory for users worldwide when using chat. It is the first among game platforms. The company strengthened safeguards so that children and teens under 18, who account for 70% of Roblox users, cannot talk to unknown adults without parental approval.
Tami Bhaumik, Roblox vice president of civility and partnerships, on the 3rd introduced Roblox's digital safety strategy at a briefing held at the Westin Josun Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul. Bhaumik said, "Roblox is a platform used daily by 123 million people worldwide, and because the share of child users is large, we put safety first and have introduced various safety measures over the past six to nine months."
A representative feature is face recognition-based age verification. Depending on the verification results, users are categorized by age group and restricted to chat only with similar age groups. Users under 9 cannot chat without parental approval, and those 9 to 15 can chat only within limited scopes. Bhaumik said, "Our goal is to prevent a young child from talking to an unknown adult without a parent's approval."
It also improved AI-based content moderation. Through Sentinel, an AI technology that analyzes conversations to detect statements that violate Roblox's child protection policy—such as violence, hate, and self-harm—the company strengthened its ability to respond in advance. Bhaumik explained, "We identify and flag responses that could be inappropriate in advance and block them before dangerous interactions occur."
It also added features that let parents directly manage their child's scope and time of platform use and who they can talk with.
The reason Roblox, known as the so-called "kids' president game," has been making every effort to strengthen safety features this year is growing criticism that the platform is not adequately protecting minors from harmful content. In recent years, issues such as grooming (conditioning for sexual exploitation) targeting children on the Roblox platform have erupted, and the company has become embroiled in more than 100 lawsuits in several U.S. states and Australia.
Some analysts say the safety features introduced accordingly help protect children but have weighed on short-term results. Roblox's second-quarter daily active users (DAU) came in at 123 million, below the market outlook of 128.7 million, and bookings, a key metric that gauges revenue, rose 8% on-year to $1.56 billion (about 2.22 trillion won), missing Wall Street's forecast of $1.6 billion.
Furthermore, it projected third-quarter revenue growth would slow to single digits and bookings would be $1.58 billion to $1.65 billion, down 14% to 18% from a year earlier. This too is below market expectations. On worries about slowing growth, Roblox shares plunged more than 14% in after-hours trading immediately after the earnings release.
The market assessed that various safeguards introduced this year dampened user engagement, while increased AI-related investment also left Roblox's second-quarter results short of expectations. The company also changed its game recommendation algorithm to prioritize games with higher user retention over those with higher short-term profitability, which is also cited as one of the factors behind the second-quarter slowdown.
However, Roblox believes that AI investment, the revamp of recommendation algorithms focused on improving long-term retention, and measures to strengthen minor safety will burden results in the short term but help earn trust and expand influence in the game market in the long term.
Navin Chaddha, Roblox chief financial officer (CFO), said on a conference call held right after the earnings release on the 30th of last month (local time), "The new policies are still in the early stages of implementation, so we cannot accurately predict what impact they will have over the next three to six months."
Bloomberg Intelligence analyzed Roblox's second-quarter results, saying, "Roblox appears to be accepting a short-term growth slowdown to avoid larger regulatory risks."