alt.hn

4/14/2026 at 6:04:31 AM

Roblox devs now need a subscription to share their games freely

 https://devforum.roblox.com/t/new-publishing-requirements-evaluation-process-for-games/4573166

by hallole

4/14/2026 at 7:50:37 AM

Hacker News is turning into every other platform over time it seems. More and more folks just see a headline and comment rather than understand that headlines are designed to mislead you for clicks.

These requirements make sense. They're additional verification steps in place for people trying to publish games for very young users.

by nusl

4/14/2026 at 8:04:55 AM

I agree with you that the HN title is editorialized and misleading, but I disagree that these requirements make sense.

They only make sense if you think it's OK for kids to send face scans to scary faceless corporations. And even if you do that, you can't share your game with friends unless they also take a face scan! (cause that's what "Trusted Friend" means - it doesn't mean trusted by you, it means trusted by them)

by skrebbel

4/14/2026 at 8:09:45 AM

(Yes, I would recommend a change of title.)

The step is a significant one, and Roblox has taken one other measure recently, restricting chat a lot for minors (https://x.com/Roblox_RTC/status/2043723470899437623) . I think this is a move to satisfy people concerned with child safety, not a cash grab. I think RB hq probably know they're making tradeoffs of keeping parents happy, while devs will be annoyed/fewer. But everyone can still make games and play them with trusted friends. Likely damages the network effect (Roblox's multiplayer aspect being one of its best parts), but oh well.

by jan_Inkepa

4/14/2026 at 8:12:40 AM

'Trusted friends' is the key term here. To become one you need to have a paid subscription and to submit a face scan or id, which is what most people here are against.

I for one will not let my child submit a face scan to Roblox in order to become a 'trusted friend', and so now they wont be able to play the games made by their friends.

by alt227

4/14/2026 at 8:23:41 AM

subscription isn't tied to trusted friends.

age check via face scan or id for both parties is required, along with ~in-person pre-existing connections or parental permission.

by rb2026

4/14/2026 at 9:56:09 AM

From what I know, Roblox has a strongly invested Trust and Safety team.

I’d be curious if this change came out of their efforts, or whether this is was to deal with compliance issues.

by intended

4/14/2026 at 9:22:31 AM

> These requirements make sense.

I think requirement 3 can make sense if we start painting everybody as potential criminal.

but requirement 2 never make sense to me. -- why need age check to publish to adult user?

by j16sdiz

4/14/2026 at 8:10:56 AM

No this does not make sense for the platform. Roblox has some of that old Flash feel, where anyone can just create a game, no matter if you are 14 or 88. If you read the comments, most people are fine with the ID checks ( i would not, but fine) but are completely against the charging of a monthly subscription to publish games. All the people that would do it for fun, wont anymore now. Basically, the corporate greed machine has now turned the platform into a "professional" platform, where you pay-to-build.

As a side note, if someone is working on something similar, then now is the time to start talking about it! ;)

by calgoo

4/14/2026 at 9:04:36 AM

This is totally unrelated so I have to assume that you didn't realize your post looks like it has a random Nazi dog whistle in it, if you were wondering what that other person's comment means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words

by skupig

4/14/2026 at 2:06:39 PM

Why is this flagged? These numbers in the middle of otherwise innocuous comment stand out like a sore thumb

by hofrogs

4/14/2026 at 9:59:04 AM

Holy shit, thanks for posting this. I was extremely confused by the other comments as well. Had no idea

by freedomben

4/14/2026 at 8:26:05 AM

[flagged]

by drayfield

4/14/2026 at 9:31:32 AM

That stood out to me too.

by gtr

4/14/2026 at 8:18:12 AM

Its because of AI slop

I dont know Lua and never touched it, Claude was able to vibe code in pieces a whole 3D Roblox experience, all while I was working in domains I did understand in another terminal window

Taking the Apple approach makes sense as too many ideas guys are flooding the platform with vending machine slop

by yieldcrv

4/14/2026 at 1:50:08 PM

Vibe coders are going to be a lot like influencers in that we're going to find out people aren't half as creative as they think they are, and no barrier of entry, like learning a programming language, will exemplify that.

With influencers, the old barrier of entry was getting a good camera and learning about lighting. Now that cameras are essentially shipped with a device everyone has on them at all times anyways, we see how low the low-hanging fruit actually hangs, as evidenced by most instagram reels which are insufferable.

by butlike

4/14/2026 at 8:57:16 AM

This won't fix the AI slop problem. If anything, it will make it worse.

Vibe coders are far more likely to be willing to pay to submit their games, because just like their $200/mo AI subscription, they see it as a necessary expense on their path to get rich quick. People who just want to make things for fun as a hobby are less likely to pay.

by bakugo

4/14/2026 at 2:16:45 PM

The serious ones, yes

Roblox is already an experiences cesspool and should have dropped the “every kid should be an entrepreneur” thing a long time ago. Roblox Studio is still accessible for tinkering.

by yieldcrv

4/14/2026 at 2:40:41 PM

>More and more folks just see a headline and comment rather than understand that headlines are designed to mislead you for clicks.

My personal policy is I don't click links I consider clickbait. I mean things that are intentionally misleading and vogue. But I sometimes check HN comments - I never comment about the post itself (since I didn't read it), but I sometimes respond to other comments (like I do now).

by integralid

4/14/2026 at 8:47:34 AM

Literally demanding the subscription? The headline is correct - you have to have "an active Roblox Plus subscription".

by watwut

4/14/2026 at 8:52:09 AM

You need the subscription ($5/mo) to publish your game to users who are <16.

16+ audiences have no requirement.

by rb2026

4/14/2026 at 9:21:01 AM

Kids doing their first obby are <16 and their friends are <16. It is not like roblox was cool for teenagers.

It is also that your game goes away when you stop paying. Which means, pay forever or you cant show it off anymore.

by watwut

4/14/2026 at 8:05:53 AM

In what way did you find the headline misleading from the actual content of the article?

by jimbob45

4/14/2026 at 8:13:51 AM

Here's an editorialized title in the other direction: On Roblox everyone can make games and play them with their friends.

Here's my suggestion for an amendement:

"Roblox devs will need plus membership to publish to young users"

by jan_Inkepa

4/14/2026 at 8:15:27 AM

But the term 'Roblox Devs' can also include other children. You seem to be missing the point a bit that kids used to be able to make games and share them with their friends for free. Now they need a paid subscription and a face scan to do that.

Yes it makes sense when you apply it to adults, but Roblox was made for kids to share and play with other kids. When you look at it from that angle it makes no sense.

by alt227

4/14/2026 at 8:14:51 AM

What if you could only upvote after you've clicked the link?

by mr_world

4/14/2026 at 8:40:25 AM

More and more HN is turning into a PR outlet for companies

Upvoting gangs upvote the PR comment that downplays the article (the "actually, let me examine is why this is fine in very polished language" type comment)

So it's not like there a total imbalance of purely misleading headlines with no response to them

by gib444

4/14/2026 at 7:31:19 AM

People here in comments seem to not read past the title that editorized, but in a wrong way.

This is basically only requirement to make games available for players under 16 so its certnly done under regulatory pressure because no way on earth they can moderate every game from unpaid users.

by SXX

4/14/2026 at 8:09:13 AM

What about if a kid under the age of 16 wants to publish a game for other under 16 year old friends, like what Roblox was created for?

Now they need a paid subscription with an id check to become a 'trusted friend'.

by alt227

4/14/2026 at 8:14:21 AM

Exactly, this will marginalize the creators of tomorrow who might have picked this up and built something, will now hesitate and probably try to find something else to build on. The people building giant games full of "buy this crap" every 5 seconds, spamming my 6 year old with prompts, they will continue doing so.

by calgoo

4/14/2026 at 8:16:42 AM

For friends, they need to do an age estimation only.

To publish globally for <16 users, the id check and subscription requirements then apply.

by rb2026

4/14/2026 at 8:18:14 AM

In the linked page, point 2 literally says this:

Publish to 16+ and Trusted Friends - To publish a game that reaches Trusted Friends and users over 16 you must:

a. Complete an age check b. Have an account in good standing c. Have an account on Roblox that’s been on the platform for at least 2 days

by alt227

4/14/2026 at 8:26:55 AM

Yeah. Can you point out where what you said and what I said differ?

The paid subscription is for publishing to <16 users globally.

by rb2026

4/14/2026 at 8:44:57 AM

You said

> For friends, they need to do an age estimation only.

Thats not true. It says to share with trusted friends and 16+ they need an account in good standing (paid) and an age check, which constitues sending a face scan or id.

I literally pasted the rule directly from their site, Im surprised you dont understand it.

by alt227

4/14/2026 at 8:47:47 AM

"Good standing" means your account wasn't moderated for violating the community standards [1] (exploiting, saying bad words, threatening users, uploading illicit content, etc).

I'm dev games on Roblox. Trust me, you're the one confused here.

[1] https://about.roblox.com/community-standards

by rb2026

4/14/2026 at 2:19:25 PM

You are still ignoring the fact that they have to provide a face scan to publish to trusted friends now.

Also that kids < 16 might be the ones who want to share games to thir friends who are < 16. They still need to pay a subscription and submit face scans to do that now which they didnt before. Thats the whole issue here.

by alt227

4/14/2026 at 3:27:32 PM

> You are still ignoring the fact that they have to provide a face scan to publish to trusted friends now.

Nope. First thing I said was "For friends, they need to do an age estimation only."

by rb2026

4/14/2026 at 10:30:27 AM

I am 17, I wasn't really a roblox player aside from playing with one of my friends once or twice[0] (more of a minecraft enthusiast) but I know or can tell there are sizable amount of people online who have only played roblox, some even started because of it under age of 16 and learnt to code because of it.

My point is, many people around me or online really really love roblox and they even start to code because of it. I mean it makes sense, Coding something translates to something directly cool. I wanted to make Minecraft plugins too but I always found java to be a bit distressing so I used to search how to make minecraft mods in python or lua when I was 15 or something, I personally never really got into roblox though (I maybe the exception rather than norm) but I suppose lua/luau makes that process a bit easier and so its gonna be a big hurdle to most youngsters who wish to code.

Also I am not fine with Age verification as well but oh well, I could've maybe understood it but what I don't understand is how a billion dollar company needs a few dollars for moderation. I feel like its just a net negative and is gonna create backlash and rightfully so in some sense.

Anecdotally one of my friends back in 10th grade (so 14-15 year olds) actually learnt lua just to make a roblox game or games in general and he was an artist, (one of the most artistic people I know) like firstly his drawings were some of the most amazing in our friend-group and he had made some quite significant amount of money by doing blender for roblox devs and he just said that he likes blender so he gets them to buy blender plugins rather than money itself. He really wanted to get into gamedev.

And I think once again my main point is that, there would be less people interested in game-dev overall. I mean we all start somewhere and I find the idea of taking subscription money a little dis-tasteful for Roblox to do.

by Imustaskforhelp

4/14/2026 at 10:45:46 AM

why the lucky stiff, an eccentric ruby programmer, wrote an article that you might like, The Little Programmer’s Predicament, https://viewsourcecode.org/why/hacking/theLittleCodersPredic...

by gcr

4/14/2026 at 11:18:53 AM

Read the article, I find it a bit fascinating how the article was written even more than 5 years before I was even born!, yet nothing has changed, maybe only gotten worse especially for windows.

Also now most things happen on phone which make programming notoriously harder.

I think Linux might be interesting here, most Linux distros come with python , I have recommended it to some friends and one of them uses it but yeah, ironically the problem with Linux in my generation to many people feels like they will miss their games. The state of gaming in Linux is now for the most part really good though but still, I sort of understand this statement and I feel like Linux just feels alien. I mean when I downloaded Linux, I didn't know too much about the command line and it felt foreign until it feels at home.

by Imustaskforhelp

4/14/2026 at 9:08:36 AM

My 6 year old likes to make basic obstacle course games and I help him with the coding.

There is ZERO chance I’m doing ID verification or paying a subscription. The entire reason we liked this platform was there was barely any friction.

I will be checking out S&box by the creator of Garry’s mod as an alternative: https://sbox.game/

by throwatdem12311

4/14/2026 at 9:16:41 AM

Similar story here with Minecraft.

Luanti + Mineclonia is absolutely excellent open source software.

I get a great sense of peace knowing that my incentives are aligned with the people who made it.

by afandian

4/14/2026 at 9:56:04 AM

Huge fan of luanti (minetest) as well. My kids never picked it up though because the client controls were not very polished and they got frustrated. Has that improved in the years?

by freedomben

4/14/2026 at 10:16:20 AM

Well, that's configurable. On full games, you just download them from the manager and start a new world with that game in the main menu. For instance, "Glitch" has nothing to do with "NodeCore", nor Mineclonia or Citadel.

by anthk

4/14/2026 at 9:16:16 AM

TFA:

> Publish for personal use - Anyone on Roblox can continue to publish games for personal use.

I know it is not great... but .. is that sufficient for your kid?

by j16sdiz

4/14/2026 at 10:05:02 AM

In order to able to be trusted by anyone, the user has to also verify their age. Also not every country has this feature yet, I never estimated my age by Roblox so i am also not trustable or can trust others.

by Majikujanisch

4/14/2026 at 1:08:53 PM

We’ve been getting into doing basic multiplayer stuff (I do the coding), so unfortunately no.

by throwatdem12311

4/14/2026 at 10:01:56 AM

Hytale also a good option, very modding friendly.

by LeeroyWasHere

4/14/2026 at 10:34:20 AM

I have been checking it out. My kid already loves Minecraft so this would be a good option probably.

by throwatdem12311

4/14/2026 at 9:58:05 AM

But do you let them play games where you have way to verify who published them? Can you at least see why some parents may not want to do this?

by ZiiS

4/14/2026 at 10:28:52 AM

I personally vet every single game he plays.

I don’t let him chat with other players (text OR voice) even though I let him play multiplayer games.

We constantly talk about the dangers of online strangers and he is fully aware of “perverts” on Roblox (though he doesn’t know what tha word really means, he understands it as bad guys that want to hurt kids).

I don’t look kindly on parents that won’t do the bare minimum to protect their kids online but want to use the force of the gun on me.

by throwatdem12311

4/14/2026 at 8:03:45 AM

My kid is 13 and likes to make silly Roblox games. No way I'm going to let him take a face scan with whatever creepy unaccountable AI data hoarding outfit Roblox decided to team up with, just so share his creations with 6 friends. How is it protecting him that he's not allowed to share creative work with people?

Good thing he was already messing around with Godot as well cause this kills Roblox for him.

by skrebbel

4/14/2026 at 8:20:40 AM

Every major government around the world is rapidly rolling out online bans and age checks of some form for social media, online gaming, or general internet access.

I agree this is dumb but this isn't a Roblox thing so much as "what the fuck are we collectively doing with privacy?" thing.

by rb2026

4/14/2026 at 7:37:16 AM

To publish to the main 16+ pool I need to do "an age check"? But it seemingly doesn't matter what the result of that check is? I'm confused.

by Dylan16807

4/14/2026 at 8:41:21 AM

The age check is part of Roblox as a whole. It dictates what games you can access and the range of ages you can communicate with. They also extend age check to who you can develop games with, as the Roblox Studio IDE is basically a real-time multiplayer 3D environment with chat.

Accounts without age verification can only play all-ages games, chat is fully disabled, and they cannot publish any content onto the platform.

by rb2026

4/14/2026 at 8:19:55 AM

Well, standard drug dealer strategy: hook someone, then milk dry.

by wartywhoa23

4/14/2026 at 10:08:38 AM

I bet the real reason is to add some friction to reduce the moderation burden generated by AI content creation.

by CrzyLngPwd

4/14/2026 at 10:19:38 AM

a bit misleading title.

> Publishing games that are available to players with either Roblox Kids (users under 9) or Roblox Select (users 9 to 15) accounts that we announced in our Newsroom will require additional verification steps than publishing games that are available to users over 16.*

by Charon77

4/14/2026 at 6:47:53 AM

will need*

by NeveHanter

4/14/2026 at 10:11:03 AM

You haven’t had content moderation questions until you’ve looked at games and user generated content.

It’s such a stupidly thorn intersection of media, user behavior, and tech.

It’s not text, it’s not image, it’s not video - it’s a whole interactive play test.

If your mods don’t walk over the right trigger, they you don’t uncover the “secret” gacha arcade room. Even better - one mod runs the map and finds the room, and sends it for review, but the second mod doesn’t find the same room.

In contrast something like “School shooting simulator” had enough policy training and was obvious enough to be moderated.

People get creative with their tools, I’ve heard of entire copyrighted movies being smuggled into thumbnails.

Bonus points if you realize that this is how good things are for America centric moderation, and how it drops off for other nations and communities.

by intended

4/14/2026 at 10:09:59 AM

You might like Luanti. Is not low-poly but I think it has some support with some full games, such as the Moon base survival one.

by anthk

4/14/2026 at 6:28:17 AM

Oh boy, the reason Roblox was this famous was that anyone could share their games publicly and people could play

Having a subscription kills Roblox and its ecosystem.

For context, Roblox has 170 million peak concurrent players, All of Steam had 85 (I got this data from someone at hackernews's comment)

This might be the end of Roblox. I hope more roblox's alternative spring up preferably open-source. There is luanti which is a minecraft alternative but I suppose a lot of games can have overlap to luanti and it runs on lua too.

by Imustaskforhelp

4/14/2026 at 6:50:36 AM

I think Hytale can grab some marketshare because its modding tools are realy good. And they are built into the game.

by mastermage

4/14/2026 at 6:04:31 AM

[dead]

by hallole

4/14/2026 at 7:28:25 AM

Capitalism: there is always one more shareholder to satisfy

by touwer

4/14/2026 at 7:33:00 AM

Stakeholder, in this case: the government

by 0x3f

4/14/2026 at 7:34:45 AM

This is not about capitalism. They will lose money on it long term and they know it otherwise they'll done it long ago.

This is move to moderated censored platform under regulatory "protect the children" pressurre and hysteria.

This is not affecting publishing games for 16+ audience.

by SXX

4/14/2026 at 7:35:09 AM

Is that accurate description though?

Capitalism: Shareholders need to be satisfied every year.

by leosanchez