Roblox made an AI Game Generator...

[00:00:00]Ever since Roblox released on mobile, there has been one feature heavily requested that they've never delivered.

[00:00:07]Roblox Studio, or some mobile suitable form of it, had perhaps been a number one feature request for a mobile platform since Roblox dropped on iOS in 2012. Mobile players have long yearned to create games, especially those who don't have access to a PC, and thus Roblox Studio. Well, after 14 years, Roblox has finally delivered and is giving mobile players a way to create games in maybe the worst way possible.

[00:00:36]Roblox announced the first ever mobile game creation feature Thursday morning, and given Bizooki's lengthy post about human civilization, you may be able to tell it's slop. Roblox Build, Roblox's new AI powered game creation tool for mobile, was announced in a newsroom article called Build Without Limits on Roblox. Despite all the limits Roblox has put on players this year, along with the limits they should have on game creation to prevent stuff like this, Roblox named the article that they've also gone on a larger than usual press tour with tech media and throughout their own social media accounts to let everyone know of their grand AI miracle.

[00:01:20]Anyway, yes, Roblox Build is a game creation feature on mobile that lets users fully AI generate games with text prompts. The 14-year wait to allow game creation on mobile has led us to this moment, and they have given us a fully AI focused tool instead. Starting on July 28th, there will be a tab somewhere on the mobile app called build where mobile users can enter in prompts to AI generate games. All you've got to do is tell the AI what you want to see, generate a play test, and tell it what you want to see again and again until you're happy. You'll then be able to play test your AI made game and publish it for public use if it passes the same all ages game publishing limits every other game has to. Mobile players will be able to fully create games with AI and release them to all ages if it's able to pass the various all ages game restrictions. Since it's not out yet, we have to rely on the sparse previews to figure out how it'll look, and they aren't exactly promising. The only AI game preview appears to show a different AI game generation process than we saw with the infamous 2% ratings World's Research Station Roblox hosted. That mess relied on fully videogenerated visuals and even avatars rather than AI generated models and assets, whereas build appears to use AI models and assets. These appear to be actual 3D models and a real avatar. Although the virtuous Nighthawk account shown is not the actual virtuous Nighthawk, so the avatar may be AI too. Roblox says build AI creates gameplay mechanics, environment, characters, visual style, sound, and more. So, they will be models and assets. It does not appear that they can be manually edited in real time though, with that probably only being possible through Studio on PC. The launch of this will also come with some studio and dashboard related AI tools for bug testing, analytic searching, and game mechanic recommendation. Roblox's announcement is pretty confusing, loaded with fluff, buzzwords, and investor talk with little real info, but basically Roblox is adding an AI game creator to mobile. As y'all can probably guess, people are not happy with Roblox's latest AI endeavor for various reasons, including Roblox's noted obsession with AI. AI is like their new metaverse, and it's definitely targeted towards investors, but clearly has become invasive for the community. All we hear about these days is AI. All Roblox seems to care about is AI, and we have to face or be dragged through their AI features constantly. I'm not the biggest AI hater ever, but even then, I do find Roblox's obsession with it annoying and harmful in many cases, like with moderation.

[00:04:28]Having a full-on AI game generator exist is also pretty strange in my opinion and kind of goes against Roblox being a platform where we make games. It's pretty ironic how Roblox says this lets you make the game despite AI making the game and it being without limits, despite all the limits Roblox has on game creation. The big thing though is mobile Roblox game creation being 14 years in the making and this being the product we get. Instead of creating the games ourselves on mobile devices, an AI just listens to a prompt and creates the entire game for us. That honestly might be one of the biggest disappointments in the history of Roblox, especially for mobile only players who have never been able to make a game. It is super disappointing to see Roblox choose this route instead of having studio mobile exist on its own or even alongside build. Roblox often preaches about how they're such a fantastic platform to learn code and stem and all that, yet here they are adding features that make AI create everything. Now, there is concern that build will just lead to a ton of AI slop appearing and possibly taking over the game ecosystem forever.

[00:05:47]That actually appears to be a concern Roblox is aware of, too. And thankfully, I don't think an AI generated game takeover is something we have to worry about. I highly suspect these AI games won't be anything of much quality, nor will they really fall into Roblox's recommendation algorithm. The Roblox newsroom Twitter posted a clip from some tech media interview where Bizooki makes it sound like the algorithm won't pick up on AI slob.

[00:06:16]>> One could have the fear, oh my gosh, we're going to get a lot of AI slob.

[00:06:21]But, you know, we already have millions of people making games. Some of them are amazing. They're not all amazing. They need to make it through um a high retention gauntlet before they start really being surfaced. So, that's probably going to be the case forever because if you think about it, who is really going to be making games with build? It'll probably be Mindless Kids and a handful of investors, both of whom don't have a large enough following to reach the all ages game requirements.

[00:06:51]The AI games would need to reach all the requirements to be open to 16 plus players, then reach the required amount of spending 16 plus players to be open to everyone. The chances build AI swap games take over the popular game ecosystem or for any to enter it at all are slim. Unless Roblox pushes a couple for tech demos that die quickly anyway.

[00:07:13]I don't think there's really anything to worry about here considering these are AI games probably made by kids that have a very hard time reaching all ages and the algorithms. Plus, don't forget these AI games probably don't include things like proper UI, good gameplay loops, or the very important money-making options either. They will probably be super basic environment showcases or hangouts without much to do since Build AI is probably incapable of creating anything complex. There are so many things blocking these games from even being seen than getting big. So, don't worry about Roblox becoming full AI slop. The main issue we face here is that build is a major disappointment after over a decade of waiting for a mobile version of studio. We could have had a great long awaited feature to help with game development, but we're getting an AI game generator instead. Roblox build AI is kind of like Future's new album. We waited a long time with super high hopes and instead got something not necessarily harmful, but super underwhelming. Maybe this is the beginning of a harmful AI takeover so Roblox makes games instead of having to pay devs, but I doubt that happened, especially anytime soon. If they did that, a massive amount of the platform would leave forever, and they should recognize that, but who knows? I guess mobile studio is still possible, but I doubt it happen anytime soon since Roblox probably wants high usage metrics long-term for build. Roblox build will release on July 28th in at least New Zealand, then begin releasing elsewhere around the world in the months following. Thank you for watching and don't forget to like, comment, subscribe down below.