With over 43.2 million users worldwide, Roblox is a popular online game platform. In the UK alone, it was the second most popular game among children aged between 4 and 15 years old in 2020.
But, what is the Roblox age rating in the UK, and is Roblox safe for kids?
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at Roblox game age rating and talk about some of the Roblox child safety options available on the game platform.
Roblox is an online game platform developed by Roblox Corporation that’s compatible with Android and Apple devices, as well as the Amazon Fire OS.
It allows users to program games in the programming language Lua and play user-created games (developed in Roblox Studio) in multiple genres, including action games, race games, and obstacle games, among others.
Roblox owes its popularity to its flexibility. It’s essentially an online place where anyone, including kids with basic coding skills, can create a game with the help of Roblox’s game development tools.
Since anyone can create any type of game on the platform, users are likely to stumble upon content that’s not suitable for children.
The PEGI age rating for Roblox is 7+ in the UK and Europe due to “frequent scenes of mild violence and scenes that younger children may find frightening.” Most Roblox games are aimed at 7-to-18-year-olds, but there’s no Roblox age restriction and anyone can use the platform. In contrast to Roblox, the PEGI rating for Fortnite is 12.
Roblox also has an age verification system, which was introduced in 2021, that requires users and players to scan an identification document to confirm their age to get access to certain features on the platform.
For now, only the Spatial Voice chat service requires age verification, but the company said there would be other tools added to the list in the near future.
The game creation system is ‘free to play,’ though users can make in-game purchases of skins, cosmetic items, and other different upgrades with Robux, Roblox’s virtual currency. Namely, almost 50% of children in the UK have bought from free-to-play games.
They can buy Robux in bundles for anywhere between £4.99 and £19.99. Those with a Roblox Premium subscription can also purchase Robux and usually get more for the same price.
Any users on Roblox can purchase items and games on the platform, regardless of their age – there is no system in place that asks users to verify their age to play Roblox using the storefront.
But, what makes Roblox so popular is that it goes both ways.
Players who create and host games can keep a portion of the money (in Robux) that other users spend on their games. Once they hit a certain benchmark, users with an active Roblox Premium membership can use a program called the Developer Exchange and convert the virtual currency to real money.
However, to use DevEx, users need to be at least 13 years old, have a W-8 on file with Roblox, and have at least 50,000 Robux in their account.
Roblox allows parents to limit what their children can see in their online chats, disable online chats altogether, block games that aren’t age-appropriate for their kids, set spend notifications, and create monthly spend restrictions.
Parents can also set a PIN to prevent their kids from accessing parental control and changing the settings without their knowledge.
What’s more, Roblox automatically restricts certain language and filters out words and phrases for players aged 12 or younger. Users that are 13 and older can use more words, but the platform will still remove inappropriate information and personal information to ensure safety.
If you want to restrict all social and chat features on the platform, you need to enable account restrictions. It will block all users on the platform from finding the account and prevent them from messaging or chatting with them.
To do so:
Parents that want to make sure strangers can’t contact their children on Roblox can set up their account in a way that only their friends in the game can reach out via a message.
To block non-friends from messaging:
If you want to turn off the chat function entirely:
If you believe that a user on the platform is breaking the rules or exhibiting inappropriate behaviour, you can report the user and/or block them.
To report a user:
To block a user:
Roblox allows parents to monitor their kid’s account activity. When you log into the account, you can see certain histories and use them as a Roblox parental guide to figure out what features to turn off:
To make sure that your child is steering clear from games that aren’t age-appropriate, here’s a list of the most popular Roblox inappropriate games for children:
Roblox is a platform where users can create their own games or play games created by others. Due to the vast choice of games and genre varieties, parents are often worried about how the content on the platform can affect their kids, despite the Roblox age limit in the UK stating that it’s suitable for children over the age of 7.
To be on the safe side, it’s best to adjust Roblox privacy settings for your kid’s accounts and keep an eye on their gaming activities.
According to the Roblox PEGI rating, kids aged 7 and older can use the platform to play and create games. Roblox is largely believed to be a safe space for children, but parents are advised to turn on parental controls on the platform to ensure maximum security and privacy.
Yes, it does. The platform allows parents to disable or limit chat options and language, restrict friend requests, and set spending limits. The Roblox age rating in the UK is 7+ but the platform still automatically filters certain language for players that are 12 and younger.
As someone who grew up gaming and always had a love for random facts, being able to write about gaming and technology for a living has been an absolute treat. Whenever I’m not researching my next topic for Don’t Disappoint Me, I am deflecting the attacks of Bosses in Sekiro, investigating a murder in Disco Elysium, helping Zagreus escape the underworld in Hades, or flanking enemies in Call of Duty with my squad. Having studied English language and literature has helped me merge these two worlds of random facts and gaming into a fulfilling career.