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Australian government demands review of Roblox’s PG rating after reports of child grooming
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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You know I'm usually against Australia's insane video game censorships, but this time they may be on to something.
Well, the problem is that if its rating changes, the game will be rated based on online content that is not actually part of the content of the game. AFAIK, it would be the first instance ever of this happening. Like if Animal Crossing became rated M because of user generated content like shirt patterns showing something inappropriate.
Its not really the game's "fault" that user generated content is causing a problem, so changing the rating of the game wouldn't really change anything.
Plus, who even follows ratings anymore? We used to in the 90s, but children have been playing M rated games for a long time. I don't see how this is going to do literally anything. Unless you are going to demand age verification to get the game, which I think is a horrendous trade off. Change the rating of a game which is known to have a problem with grooming in DMs in exchange for being forced to present identification to buy or play video games?
If you allow user generated content in your game, you should be responsible for it.
As for changing the rating not achieving anything, you're wrong again. I imagine there are a lot of adults with kids who are unaware of the chat elements of Roblox and how it exposed their children to sex offenders. Changing the rating would likely cause some people to pause for thought when seeing it. It would probably limit it's visibility on some store front. Possibly be removed from others. And if nothing else, I imagine the news cycle around having its rating changed would reach a lot of people who wouldn't usually be aware of this.
100% this. The fuckers like to profit from what is essentially free labour (user gen content) while having no responsibility for it. Fuck them and Bethesda while we're on it!