Roblox has come under heavy criticism for the brand new Roblox Connect feature that was added to the game due to the dangers surrounding players, especially children, who can make real-time calls.
Roblox first announced its revolutionary virtual calling feature at the Roblox 2023 Developer Conference in September.
The feature was demonstrated by CEO David Baszucki during his keynote address at the event, where Badzucki gave a live demo. It showed that players would be able to capture motion using their cameras and create virtual avatars to call other users in real time.
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Since the in-game feature is almost identical to regular voice calls, and the sandbox game is typically aimed at children, this has raised concerns in the community about potential dangers.
Roblox faces backlash over ‘dangerous’ voice calling feature
Roblox launched the in-game voice calling feature through an update that was accompanied by an official blog post and social media posts.
“Today we are launching Roblox Connect, a technology that allows over 13 users to connect 1:1 in a shared environment. We can’t wait to see how the creators implement it into their experiences!” They announced.
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However, it soon received a lot of negative comments as players and the wider gaming community poured in to express their concerns about its dangers.
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“Roblox is becoming more and more like a social platform rather than a place to create games. This will end badly,” one user replied, with many asking, “Why did you guys think this feature was worth adding?”
Most people expressed concern about the dangers of allowing children to use the in-game feature, since the developers stated that access to the service would be “13+”.
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“Instead of trying to solve the problems of predators in Roblox, add more features that help them. Amazing job Roblox,” another commented.
“This is a bad idea for Roblox, especially on your platform because this is where most of the predators come from and it makes it easier for predators to prey on children,” the user added.
The addition of the controversial feature comes after Omegle shut down after 14 years on November 9 after it was deemed more “harmful” than useful.
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