‘Roblox’ blocked from PlayStation over worries it could “potentially exploit” children
In a document to investors from 2022, PlayStation president Jim Ryan voiced worries that Roblox had the potential to be a danger to young gamers, yet it sounded like Sony was open to being convinced otherwise.
In 2021, YouTube channel People Make Games revealed that Roblox allegedly skims over 75 percent of the profits from user-generated games made by its predominantly younger player base, and alleged that child developers were at risk of exploitation from third-party platforms encouraging children to use unofficial trading sites to obtain valuable in-game items.
Furthermore, even the strictest parental settings were said to still let players discover and play games that had inappropriate themes like “bathroom voyeur games and suicidal idealisation”.
Now, Axios has divulged details surrounding Sony’s reluctance to put Roblox on its platforms, drawn from a piece of evidence used in the case between the Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft regarding its £54billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
“Historically, because of the large number of children that play on the PlayStation, we have been very careful with regards to opening them up to anything that could potentially exploit them,” said Ryan. “Over the last couple of years, however, we have reviewed those policies and relaxed a little on this. We have been conservative for too long, and now we are currently engaging with people at Roblox. We hope that the situation will change.”
Nevertheless, there has been no word on if Roblox will make it to the platform, in spite of its immense popularity. In the last financial year, Roblox‘s revenue hit £1.7billion ($2.2billion), which was a 16 per cent increase year-on-year, and hours engaged neared 50billion.
“Since inception we have focused on building a technology platform that enables a large and growing community of creators to build amazing experiences,” said David Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox, in May. “The momentum in our business demonstrates the success of our creator community as they bring their visions to life on Roblox, attracting an ever-growing global user base that spans all ages.”
Elsewhere, the latest revelation from the ongoing case against Microsoft’s potential Activision acquisition is that the corporation considered buying Bungie and Sega to strengthen its Game Pass offerings.
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Imogen Donovan
NME
