Title: Keep kids off Roblox if worried, CEO Dave Baszucki tells parents

Addressing parental concerns about children's addiction to the Roblox platform, the game platform's CEO stated that parents who feel uneasy should not allow their children to use the platform. Roblox is very popular among young players aged 8 to 12 in the UK, but it has consistently faced issues such as children being exposed to inappropriate content, school bullying, and allegations of sexual assault.

Roblox co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki insists that the company is always vigilant in protecting user safety, noting that "tens of millions" of people have a "wonderful experience" on the platform. In an exclusive interview with BBC News, when asked what advice he had for parents who do not want their children to use the platform, Baszucki responded, "If you're not comfortable, don't let your kids use Roblox." He added, "It may sound counterintuitive, but I always believe parents will make their own decisions."

Justine Roberts, head of the Mumsnet forum, said that parents on the forum have reported that they find it difficult to manage their children's use of Roblox. She advises parents to continuously monitor their children's gaming behavior and to make full use of the parental control features provided by the platform. However, she also admitted that in reality, parents often find it difficult to monitor their children's behavior 24 hours a day, even after setting all the parental control options.

Ellie Gibson, host of the Scummy Mummies podcast, believes that Baszucki's response sounds like "a way of passing the buck." She pointed out that when children's friends are all playing Roblox, it is easier said than done to prevent them from using the platform. Roblox is one of the largest gaming platforms in the world, with more monthly active users than Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation combined. In 2024, the platform had an average of over 80 million daily active players, with approximately 40% of players under the age of 13, and boasts around 40 million user-generated games and experiences.

The UK's Online Safety Act, which comes into effect in April, sets strict laws for all tech companies aimed at protecting children from online harm. Baszucki is confident in Roblox's safety tools and insists that the company will do everything possible to ensure user safety. "Our company's principle is that any bad incident, even if it happens only once, is one too many," he said. "We monitor bullying and harassment and filter all similar content. If necessary, we contact law enforcement."

Roblox claims that the platform analyzes all communications between members and increasingly uses advanced artificial intelligence systems and other technologies for monitoring. Content that is flagged is further investigated by the platform. Last November, the platform banned users under the age of 13 from sending private messages and also prohibited them from participating in "social experiences" that include player chat.

However, the BBC successfully created two fake accounts, one for a 15-year-old and one for a 27-year-old, and sent messages to each other on unrelated devices. While the platform filtered out our attempts to move the conversation to other platforms, we easily found ways to make requests to chat elsewhere by changing the wording and suggesting playing more adult games. When we presented these findings to the head of Roblox, he argued that our examples precisely highlighted the relative safety of Roblox: people feel they have to move content that might violate Roblox rules to other platforms.

"We do not tolerate the sharing of any type of image on our platform, and you will see that we are increasing our control over such behavior, even beyond what the law requires," Baszucki said. He acknowledged that there is a delicate balance between encouraging young people to form friendships and preventing them from being harmed, but he believes that Roblox can strike that balance.

The BBC also showed him some Roblox game titles that the platform had recently recommended to an 11-year-old child, including: "Late Night Boy Girl Club RP," "Special Forces Simulator," "Squid Game," and "Shoot Down Planes...Why Not?" When asked if he thought these games were suitable for children, he said he believed in the platform's age rating system. "An important principle of how we do things is to look not only at the name of the experience, but also at the content of the experience," he said. He insisted that Roblox follows strict guidelines when rating experiences and that the company has a "consistent policy" in this regard.

Baszucki co-founded the Roblox platform with Eric Cassel in 2004 and released it to the public in 2006. Their first company was an educational software provider called Knowledge Revolution. But they soon noticed that children were using the product for more than just homework. "They wanted to play and build things. They built houses, boats, or scenery, and they wanted to jump in, and all of this learning process was the seed of Roblox," he said. The name Roblox is a combination of the words "robot" and "blocks," and it has remained so ever since. The platform quickly became popular, but there were also early warning signs of problems.

Baszucki recalled that Cassel noticed that some players began to "act out" a few months after the platform launched, and their behavior was not always "civilized." Therefore, the foundation for building a "trust and safety system" "started very early," and in the early days, there were four people serving as safety moderators. "That kind of kicked off this safety civilization foundation," he added.

Despite attracting a considerable number of users, the company did not truly begin to profit until a year later when it introduced the digital currency Robux. Players purchase Robux and use it to buy accessories and unlock content. Now, content creators receive 70% of the fees, and the store uses dynamic pricing, which means that popular items are priced higher. Baszucki said that initially, there was some resistance within the leadership team to Roblox becoming more than just a hobby for players and to the introduction of a digital economy.

Robux ultimately remained, and the company is now worth $41 billion (£31 billion). Since its IPO in 2021, its share price has fluctuated, but overall, at the time of writing, Roblox's stock is up about a third from six months ago. Like many large tech companies, its value peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns meant millions of people were staying indoors.

Baszucki compared his experience of building Roblox to how Walt Disney felt about his creations. He described his work as "a little bit like having the opportunity to design the Magic Kingdom a long time ago" and focused on Roblox constantly evolving into a Metaverse-style experience where people spend their daily lives in virtual worlds as virtual avatars. They have also publicly stated that their goal is to eventually attract 10% of the world's gamers. When asked to describe Roblox in three words, he replied, "The future of communication."

We played a few of his favorite games together: Natural Disaster Survival and Dress to Impress. We used his account, and he was constantly recognized by other players—but we were still smashed to pieces by a blizzard outside the Natural Disasters mansion.