Roblox Deleted Millions of Games

[00:00:00]We're at a point where I don't know how to start videos because I've run out of ways to describe the latest Roblox news being some of the worst ever. It has not been enjoyable watching Roblox continuously shoot themselves in the foot, and we may have just seen the most extreme example of it. Roblox has released Roblox Kids, Roblox Select, and Roblox 16 Plus, and with it has come a couple of surprises we could have never expected. Y'all may have noticed that Roblox's new account types for different AI face scan determined age groups are now active worldwide. We've talked about them so many times already that I'm not going to go into them too much, but they basically just control what each age group can play and their chat. Roblox Kids is for 5 to 8year-olds. Roblox Select is for 9 to 15 year olds, and Roblox is for 16 plus. All determined by the infamous AI face scans. Each group can only play certain games, has different chat capabilities, and allows different parental controls, which we've gone over before, but you can pause and read if you want. If you aren't age checked/ haven't done a face scan like myself, though, Roblox planned to put us into Roblox Kids with all the restrictions it has, minus chat unlocking. we'd be stuck playing minimal or mild games for the rest of our days, no matter how old we truly were or how long we'd been on a platform. Well, the first surprise we have is that there's a fourth account type. as I'm now in something called Roblox Unchecked across all my accounts. I have not seen any announcements or details outlining how it works, but what I can say for sure is that I'm able to play minimal, mild, and moderate games. I'm not limited to only Roblox kids games, but I won't be able to play 16 plus games sometime in the future. And I still can't chat, of course. This is honestly a very nice surprise because us unchecked people and devs of moderate games thought we'd be locked into minimal and mild ones.

[00:02:07]Roblox unchecked existing means we can still play those games and devs of moderate games won't lose out on nearly half of the global daily active audience. This is a very nice surprise.

[00:02:18]I'm pretty happy about on the sole basis that it's nowhere near as destructive as their original plan to lock us all into Roblox Kids games. Like I've said before, I don't think Roblox kids select Roblox and now Unchecked 2 are anything major. They're not super strict. They're not super destructive. And now that non-age estimated players can play moderate games too, not as problematic as before. Other surprises are more of a mixed bag, though, with some that sound decent and others that are definitely pretty bad. Some of them revolve around the all ages game publishing requirements that Roblox keeps releasing new info about because they didn't say everything originally. We've talked about that horrendous update so many times, too. So, I'm not going to get into it much, but it alters how games can be played by all ages. All new games, and maybe some existing ones, too, will be locked to 16 plus age checked users only first before being allowed to be playable by Roblox Kids, Select, and Unchecked players. To be unlocked, the game must obtain 500 highly engaged players within 90 days who are 16 plus age checked, play the game a bit, and have spent a certain amount of money on Roblox. It's extremely controversial and very difficult to obtain, leading to many games potentially being locked to 16 plus players forever. Well, Roblox has responded to that in a couple ways, with the first being relaxing the highly engaged requirements. somehow and that it'll increase eligible games by 33%.

[00:04:00]Roblox acknowledged the current requirements are difficult to reach, so they've announced that they'll relax the definition of highly engaged players and revisit it. It's a pretty empty statement that doesn't really say anything other than that it'll be easier for games to become all ages eligible, which is good. The only issue is that it's such an empty statement that's so vague and has so little detail that it almost feels meaningless and unserious.

[00:04:29]They also announced a new option to target game ads to players who may count as highly engaged to make it easier as well. Roblox is able to detect a platform spend requirement. So, I guess devs can now make ads target spenders who then count as highly engaged if they play the game enough. That's a pretty smart move to help boost highly engaged counts, although it's unknown how effective it is and if deviating from the usual target would do more harm than good. Unfortunately, the other surprise relating to the all ages publishing requirement is not as good and favors the top studios on Roblox. Roblox has announced an expedited review that allows certain games to bypass the highly engaged requirement by paying a 100,000 Robux refundable fee. Those who either already have 100,000 Robux or can afford to buy 100,000 Robux can pay for this expedited review that takes up to 48 hours. Anyone who pays is able to completely bypass the highly engaged requirements and gets a quick review in less than two days to unlock their game to all ages. Roblox says this is for professional studios that need a predictable launch window for stuff like big releases or updates. I think if the game passes the checks and doesn't severely violate the toos after 90 days, the dev or studio can then request a refund and get the 100,000 Robux back.

[00:06:07]People are not overly pleased with this because it's basically favoritism to the rich while the rest of us have to suffer through the long and tedious highly engaged nonsense. I personally don't think it's the biggest deal ever and it is refundable, but I don't like the fact Roblox is favoring those who are already rich and successful. I don't like this all ages game publishing requirement stuff overall though, and the publishing requirements announced in December were way better. This all ages stuff is a mess, seemingly favoring high revenue/highspend games, and this expedited review once again favors the rich. Roblox also announced the total removal of social links across the platform for anyone who isn't age estimated as 16 plus. If you aren't age checked or age checked as below 16, you won't be able to see any social links anywhere on the platform, which I honestly think is good. There have been so many instances of strange people linking bad Discord servers or social media accounts to profiles and strange games. Good examples of that were Nitrol Lord linking a gross furry Twitter to his alt account or Teddy having a Discord server linked to his games where weirdos would meet up. I honestly don't mind this change, although I think a better way to go upon it would be allowing games to have public social links after reaching a certain number of visits. Obviously, Roblox would have to ban games like Teddy's before they get to that threshold first, but if they can do that, then that probably isn't a bad idea. Let maybe star creators and top devs have links on their profiles too, but that's it because weirdos have been abusing it too much. I know some people won't like this, but I personally don't mind due to how abused it has become and how hard it is for Roblox to moderate.

[00:07:59]The last surprise that arrived with Roblox Kids Select 16 Plus and Unchecked was not announced though, and it is without question the worst part of all this. On Tuesday afternoon, Roblox players started noticing that a ton of old games were suddenly private and had their icons removed. It didn't take long for people to realize that Roblox had taken down every single game owned by someone who hadn't done an age check.

[00:08:29]Since only above 50% of daily active users have age checked and presumably most inactive users haven't, over 50% of the platforms games had been taken down.

[00:08:43]This includes smaller ones like mine and massive and still decently popular ones like Mad City 2, which has over 2 billion visits. It mainly affected the remaining classic and historic games that survived the massive no maturity label purge from a while back. Though Roblox did this without any warning, no announcements or a response once people started freaking out about it. This led to some speculation that it was another glitch or a glitch that was a quiet test to see how people would react or how it affect metrics. Others believed it was intentional because Roblox doesn't like their own history, may have been trying to hide it or to take out competition to drive people to higher revenue games.

[00:09:32]Well, it turns out that it was somehow an unintended side effect of implementing Roblox Kids Select 16 Plus and Unchecked, meaning it is not permanent. Roblox took a day to respond where they confirmed that it was some kind of glitch, but that's unfortunately not the end of it. Games with maturity labels published before April 13th, 2026, regardless of age checking. So, all of these classics will be locked to 16 plus players. All of these games are being locked regardless and if I had to guess will probably be locked due to their owners not being age checked at some point in time. This is the second weird bug we've seen relating to games requiring age verification to play or be played recently, which leads me to believe Roblox is testing something. I don't understand how something like this could happen on a technical level or why Roblox has the option to close all games owned by unchecked players. I would not at all be surprised if Roblox requires devs to be age check to have games open or if they require age checks to even play games at some point in time. that would completely destroy the platform for nearly half of all daily active users and the rest of the inactive people who may return as well. Roblox better not do that, but considering their stupid decisions and being forced to do stuff due to their own failures, I wouldn't be surprised if it happens.

[00:11:07]Roblox evidently does not care much about preserving their history, so they probably wouldn't mind doing this, especially if it eliminates some competition for big money makers. If this was intentional and I wasn't a YouTuber, it definitely would have been a final straw for me if I hadn't already quit. A ton of longtime players and maybe even some newer ones probably would have quit over this if Roblox were to actually implement it. Roblox cannot do something like this ever, but I know they don't really care about what we have to say, so all we can really do is sit back and hope they don't do it. This all went down on June 16th, exactly 1 year to the day that Teddy was discovered to have been invited to Egg Hunt 2025. Who would have ever thought that just a year later things would be this bad? The millions of games Roblox closed have been reopened, but I'm not sure Roblox will want to keep them open much longer. I don't know where Roblox will go from here, but it's becoming nearly impossible to expect them to do the right thing.