RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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If you’ve heard anything about Roblox in the past few years, you’re probably aware that it’s become somewhat of a breeding ground for slop, whether that means AI-generated content or just low-effort dopamine farms designed to get kids hooked. But, after a disturbing trend introduced in-game doomscrolling to the platform, Roblox’s team has drawn the line against certain types of games. This week, Roblox announced a new policy that limits the visibility of games that reward players for scrolling through what are essentially in-game TikTok feeds. According to the Roblox team, games will now be banned from Roblox Kids and Select, two catalogs automatically applied to younger users’ accounts, if they meet all three of the following requirements:
It displays a media feed to players: short-form videos, image feeds, or social media-style stories.
It features or mimics at least one of the following mechanics: autoplay, continuous replay loop, infinite scroll, or autoscroll.
It includes reward mechanics that require, or imply the requirement of, ongoing viewing of that content.
The policy was most likely introduced due to the runaway success of games like Steal an Egg , which spawned a handful of copycats. In Steal an Egg , players take eggs from wild animals to hatch pets on their farms. As in the rest of Roblox’s games whose names begin with “Steal a,” other players as well as the pets who laid those eggs can take said eggs, which creates a stressful, competitive environment. This problem can only be remedied by gaining speed, which can be earned by training on a treadmill or purchased with real cash, in order to outrun any potential egg thieves.
Having a treadmill to mindlessly train on is pretty standard for the platform’s brightly-colored incremental games. The issue with Steal an Egg , though, is that its treadmills initially came with a giant screen called “Reels,” letting players watch short-form videos mostly composed of AI slop and uncredited popular TikToks while they train for their next egg-stealing exploits.
Here’s a horrific screenshot of the game’s Reels (taken from a gameplay video by YouTuber Techy Plays ):
After Roblox’s crackdown, Steal an Egg was quickly reuploaded without its Reels feature, and it currently has nearly 800,000 active players (making it, by far, the Roblox game with the highest concurrent player count despite its recent takedown). But the Reels were apparently part of what helped propel Steal an Egg to the top of the charts, with quite a few players in the game’s Discord server complaining about the feature’s absence.
It seems like half the games on Roblox are already mindless engagement sandboxes. Doomscrolling is the last thing that needs to be popularized on the platform! I’m at least glad Roblox cracked down on it pretty quickly, but it’s a little upsetting that the platform has devolved into something so brainless that this game, and many others like it, were able to thrive in the first place.
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