• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

One week after hundreds of thousands of Roblox users urged CEO David Baszucki to quit, the immersive gaming company says it is in the process of expanding its age-estimation technology to all users by the end of 2025 -- in addition to launching new systems designed to limit communication between adults and minors.

Officially the largest social gaming platform in the world, Roblox has been the subject of lawsuits and mounting reports citing its alleged failure to implement basic safety controls, with adults posing as children and preying on underage users in sexually explicit in-game experiences.

Since November, when a report in Bloomberg deemed Roblox “an X-rated pedophile hellscape,” the immersive gaming platform has experienced a significant increase in complaints and lawsuits.

Following a Change.org petition with over 270,000 people demanding that Buszucki step down in lieu of the company's alleged inability to protect child and teen users, Roblox has detailed its forthcoming age-estimation system.

According to the company, by the end of the year, users' ages will be verified by a system that combines “facial age estimation technology, ID age verification, and verified parental consent.”

Roblox believes this will provide a more accurate measure of a user's age than the current reality, which relies “on what someone types in when they create an account” – a simple approach that insights agency Revealing Reality found led to adults and children interacting in the same virtual spaces “with no effective age verification or separation.”

Along with the new age-verification system rollout, Roblox says it is partnering with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) to assign age and content ratings to in-platform games and apps.

The company will also launch new systems that are intended to reduce in-game communication between adults and children “unless they know each other in the real world.”

“We’re taking this step as part of our long-term vision as a platform for all ages,” the company adds.