Roblox Is Finally Purging Bots, And It Could Make Fan-Favorite Games Unplayable

Whenever the internet evolves one annoying constant remains: bots. They are crawling all over search engines and social media. Bots can click ads, leave ratings, and inflate traffic to make a product look more popular than it really is. Advertisers have burned through billions of dollars trying to reach accounts that weren’t even real. They’re everywhere. According to a recent study, a staggering 53% of all traffic on the internet comes from bots and more than 75% of those are malicious. The world’s largest gaming platform isn’t safe either. From faking high player counts to manipulating reviews, bots have been an embarrassing open secret across the service’s ecosystem. And since Roblox is a publicly traded company, they have a strict obligation to make sure its metrics are accurate. So now, they’re going to war with the machines.

Last week, Roblox launched a major crackdown on suspected bot accounts across the platform. The company says its new detection tools can identify bot networks at a much bigger scale than it previously could. The announcement noted that the efforts will grow over the next few weeks. Individual experiences’ public-facing stats could also be affected. Visits, followers, votes, and other metrics connected to removed accounts will be rolled back. That could shrink some experiences’ formerly impressive numbers very fast. And since bot accounts can be kicked in real time, a few lucky players could witness a Roblox rapture.

Roblox ‘s Purge Could Leave Some Games Ghosted

The lower metric counts could also potentially embarrass some advertisers in Roblox‘s branded-game business. Brands have paid developers to build experiences around everything from movies to Elton John’s farewell tour. Most of the time, the games have to meet traffic and engagement thresholds set by the marketers. Eliminating the bots could force some devs to explain very different numbers from what was visible before the campaigns ended. No one is publicly being accused of fraud, but don’t be surprised when you hear about audits for highly affected experiences.

The purge’s most obvious problem is that some games may look like ghost towns. Multiplayer experiences count on lots of players showing up. Competitive games need opponents and matchmaking only works when enough players are in the queue. Long waits make real players leave. Creating a loop of even longer wait times for those that try to stick around. If bots have been keeping a struggling experience afloat, removing them could make the game appear like it’s flatlining. The missing accounts won’t suddenly break every game, but the disappearance of a chunk of a game’s audience will headaches in some communities.

Creators are responding positively to the news of the crackdown. While thanking the platform, one commenter went as far as to bet some front page games could “reduce their players by 90%!” Roblox is attempting to create a more transparent environment by removing the spam accounts, but that transparency may come with some awkward revelations. Turns out, checking whether all of the players are real is a pretty important building block.

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