Roblox is a popular video game that currently has 70.2 million daily active users. The game has changed drastically since it was first created, and many fans are upset with these changes.

The beta version of Roblox, originally called DynaBlocks, was released in 2004. Only a year later the name was changed to Roblox, and it was rereleased a year later, in 2006. Roblox has become a much different game than it originally was. The late 2000s and early to mid 2010s are considered to be “old Roblox,” and are thought of to be the best days of Roblox. I can agree with that statement because I started playing Roblox in 2014. 

When I played Roblox when I was younger, it was a completely different game. Games made by other players were truly unique. Many games require skill to complete, and you could achieve many things just with hard work. Lots of games had amazing players and lots of people made great friends. Roblox could be played on many devices, and it was really what I remember playing the most in my childhood. Of course, you could originally spend real money on the game, but it was only to buy a nice avatar, though you didn’t have to have one to be treated the same.

New Roblox is completely different, and not in a good way. Many changes have been made that have upset many fans. One of the main issues is that everything costs money now. Many games are just pay-to-win, and you will be treated differently based on how expensive your avatar is. Many lower quality devices (phones, tablets) have trouble even running the game now, and many are unable to join games anymore. 

How did this happen, and only in the span of a few years? It started with the game “Adopt Me,” which is now the most popular game on Roblox. The game originally started as a family roleplay game but quickly evolved into a competitive cash grab. With the addition of pets that cost money, vary in rarity, and trading with other players, it became one of the most toxic games on Roblox. The game is mostly played by children ages 9 – 13, but they spend tons of real money trying to get better items in the game. Many players will scam others out of things that cost them real money, and there is seemingly no way to stop it. Many games have since followed in putting less real work into their games. Games now are usually pay-to-win, and even if you do pay for everything, the game will no longer have any objectives and will therefore become boring. Many people who used to play Roblox constantly have quickly stopped playing, and many accounts have become inactive. This has become so much more apparent with the recent addition of inactive account deletion. Many accounts will now say “deleted for inactivity” on them, which was not necessary prior to the newer updates.

For a decent amount of time, Roblox has been trying to make their game more realistic, to the dismay of many. They have gone through so many recent changes which seem almost pointless to many. With the addition of game ratings that allow almost no differences, voice chat which requires actual ID verification, and new heads for characters that you can control with your real face by using your camera, many players are starting to find Roblox to be too extra now. 

The platform itself has had so many additions recently that it’s been announced that they may be making it almost impossible for mobile users to play anymore. Many games make Roblox go offline quite often because of how high quality and defined the games are. If the games become too complex, the game will crash or become too laggy for most mobile players, if not all. If this ends up becoming true, this will wipe away many players, as 78% of the player base are mobile users. As mentioned before, Adopt Me is the most popular game on Roblox. This game is played almost exclusively by children and pre-teens. Most of these players use mobile devices to play, as they are fairly young. Removing mobile players will remove an extremely large part of their player base, and would change everything.

Roblox has been making all of these changes so fast but should go back to its roots and simplicity. It is becoming too much to be only a children’s game, and may no longer have many players due to the mobile player removal. It is quickly going downhill, and they should think about these decisions in the long run, as it is going downhill quite fast.