Speaker A
Roblox's 500 highly engaged players update explained like you're five. Here's what we got. We hit the threshold yesterday.
Explains Roblox's 500 highly engaged players update, its purpose for child safety, and how developers can meet the new threshold.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- The update prioritizes child safety by filtering out predatory games through engagement verification.
- 500 highly engaged players are required before a game can reach users under 16.
- Highly engaged players are those who have spent money on Roblox in the last 60 days, not necessarily in your game.
- Ads should use Roblox recommended targeting; age targeting is handled automatically.
- Developers can expect a combination of ad traffic and home recommendations to reach the threshold efficiently.
What the video covers
- Roblox introduced a new update requiring games to reach 500 highly engaged players before being accessible to users under 16.
- The update aims to improve child safety by preventing predatory 'condo games' from reaching younger audiences.
- Roblox is splitting into two versions: Roblox Kids and Roblox Select, with stricter moderation for younger players.
- Highly engaged players are defined by Roblox as users who have made a minimum purchase anywhere on the platform in the last 60 days.
- Developers do not need to target ads specifically to 16+ players; Roblox automatically serves ads to the correct age group.
- A fast track option with a pre-launch review and higher fee is being explored for creators wanting early access to younger audiences.
- The update uses a multimodal moderation system analyzing account age, play history, and spending to verify genuine engagement.
- The creator shares personal experience hitting the 500 player threshold in 11 days with around $180 ad spend.
- Home recommendations significantly boost progress after initial ad-driven traffic.
- Roblox intentionally keeps exact engagement metrics undisclosed to prevent exploitation by bad actors.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and update overview
- 00:40Purpose of the update
- 01:02Problem with predatory condo games
- 01:55Root cause and Roblox's response
- 02:32Why the update is good for kids' safety
- 03:03How the update works: age gating explained
- 03:41Roblox's 'bouncer' analogy for game access
- 04:09Fast track option and ad targeting clarifications
- 05:07Defining a highly engaged player
- 06:29Official Roblox criteria and misinformation
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Okay. And I want to show you guys in this video how we hit this threshold, my thoughts on it, combined with anecdotal evidence we got from Twitter, some successful devs on Twitter have thoughts on this.
Speaker A
We're going to pull facts from the Roblox documentation. And my intention in this video is to help you guys hit this threshold as quick as possible, man. Okay.
Speaker A
Let's get into it. First, let's understand what is the purpose of this update, dude?
Speaker A
Well, it's very simple. Roblox is splitting into two versions, okay? We have Roblox Kids, we have Roblox Select.
Speaker A
Okay. Here is the issue, right? Every single game previously used to be visible to all ages.
Speaker A
And unfortunately, there's some shitty people in the world, right? And what would happen is bad actors, okay, aka shitty people, would make these condo games. We don't have to get into it, but basically predatory games preying on young kids.
Speaker A
Roblox starts getting sued up the ass all over the US, banned in certain countries. It's a show for them, right?
Speaker A
Okay. What I imagine is they find the root cause of the problem. That these bad guys here are finding a way to get these crappy games into the algorithm by pumping them full with fake engagement, aka pumping these condo games full of bots
Speaker A
to get them into the algorithm. That's what I believe Roblox found to be the root cause of the problem and why they're rolling out this whole thing.
Speaker A
So, it's important to note everyone's pissed about this update, but first and foremost, this update is actually a very good thing for the safety of children, okay?
Speaker A
Sorry that you're a developer and you're upset and you're always pissed off at Roblox, but like dude, we're talking about safety of kids. Like that should come first before anything, okay?
Speaker A
So, like what? Chill, bro. This is for the kids, all right? Thank you. How does it work?
Speaker A
Well, every single game since May 19th when launched is only available to the 16+ audience, okay?
Speaker A
Think about it like a nightclub. Some of you are probably too young to even go to a nightclub, but you go to a nightclub, there's a bouncer at the door, okay? He says, "Can I see your ID?" Why does he
Speaker A
do that? Because if you're underage, you can't enter the building. Why? Because you can't drink alcohol. Okay. Similar thing here. Roblox is like, "Hey, you launch your game, cool.
Speaker A
But you can't get into the algorithm, but you can't get into the algorithm for younger kids until we check your ID.
Speaker A
They're not actually checking your ID, but what they're checking is to make sure that your game is not a condo game low-key or that your game is not a crappy—yeah, crappy condo game. We'll just leave it at that. Okay.
Speaker A
So, what happens is Roblox has got the bouncer at the door saying, "Hey, before you can be shown to kids under the age of 16, we got to make sure a few things are good first." And the main thing is we got to make
Speaker A
sure that these people that are coming to your game are actually highly engaged players.
Speaker A
Okay? Now, most common question I get, what if my game is for ages younger than 16 plus?
Speaker A
My answer to you would be it does not matter. Why? Because let's read what the official documentation says. Okay?
Speaker A
This was in the FAQ. You can find it here. I can link it here.
Speaker A
Okay? And this is what this says. What if I need my game to reach kids and select users before reaching the highly engaged player requirement?
Speaker A
Okay? Roblox says we're exploring a fast track option for creators who want to maximize reach before meeting the highly engaged player requirement bar to ensure the highest safety standards. This option will include a pre-launch review with a higher upfront fee than our standard
Speaker A
publishing flow. Like our existing refundable publishing fees, this fast track option will be recoupable for experiences that meet our community standards. We'll share more details prior to our global rollout of kids and select accounts. Okay.
Speaker A
So, for the person that always asks me this in my DMs, my answer is it does not matter. Okay?
Speaker A
When you run ads, run ads using Roblox recommended targeting. I want to dispel this crystal clear in this video. You do not have to run ads to players that are 16 plus.
Speaker A
When you turn on ads, all the ads will be served to 16 plus automatically. Okay? That's also been dispelled. Okay?
Speaker A
Cool. Moving on. What you want to achieve, obviously, is 500 highly engaged players to visit your game. Okay? Let's first understand what defines a highly engaged player because there's a lot of misinformation, unfortunately, on Roblox Twitter. It gets crazy. It's a
Speaker A
crazy echo chamber of misinformation. So, what defines a highly engaged player? Again, let's read from official Roblox statements, okay?
Speaker A
What exactly is a highly engaged player? Before a game can reach younger audiences, you need to confirm it meets our policies for Roblox Kids and Select accounts. To do this, our real-time multimodal moderation system reviews player engagement using signals like
Speaker A
account age, play history, and platform spend to verify that it is genuine and comes from highly engaged players. AKA, Roblox is doing a vibe check and making sure that your players are not bots.
Speaker A
Now, it's important to note that these highly engaged players are just people that are engaged on the Roblox platform as a whole, okay? A highly engaged player is a user who has met a minimum purchase amount anywhere on Roblox in the last 60 days. Anywhere
Speaker A
on Roblox in the last 60 days, okay? They don't need to spend anything in your game.
Speaker A
Guys, low-key, the content I make is me just reading stuff because you guys don't like to read.
Speaker A
All right, I'm not hating, but like, come on now. Do a little bit of research before you believe what you see on Twitter, okay?
Speaker A
So, what's the TLDR? Anyone that actually spent money on the platform in the past 60 days qualifies.
Speaker A
Okay, with some caveats. Now, you got to keep something in mind, okay? Account age, play history, platform spend.
Speaker A
Roblox is not going to tell you exactly the account age, the exact play history, and the exact platform spend. Why?
Speaker A
Because if they put that in public information, then the bad actors will yet again reverse engineer that and find again a way to get their crappy condo games into the algorithm. So, Roblox is in a tough spot here. They want to help the
Speaker A
creators, obviously, because you guys are the lifeline of their business, but they don't want to be super super clear on exactly what these metrics are, exactly how much spend history, play all that stuff, because they don't want bad actors
Speaker A
to reverse engineer it. That's my take. Okay. Now, how did I hit this? Let's wrap this up.
Speaker A
I started ads on May 20th, 2026. Okay? So, 12 days ago now, it's June 1st, running $16 a day.
Speaker A
Okay? We passed the threshold literally yesterday. So, it took us 11 days and around $100, $180 in ad spend.
Speaker A
Okay? Now, here's something important to note. You can see this is our metrics right here. Okay?
Speaker A
Pretty much all of our traffic came from ads, like 45K. Okay? We only had 950 plays from home recs.
Speaker A
Okay? Now, what I noticed, I'm going to show you guys this actually. Okay? This is when we started running ads on the 20th.
Speaker A
Okay? You can see home recommendation zero, sponsored ads 25K, home recommendation zero. Okay? These first three or four days, the threshold went really really slow. I think we only had like 10 or 20 out of the 500.
Speaker A
Okay? Now, you can see we started getting some home rec impressions. This is when it went probably from like 50 to 80, it started jumping quicker.
Speaker A
And then started jumping quicker than like around here, we're probably at like 250. And then once we started really getting more home rec impressions, it went really fast.
Speaker A
Okay? Now, this is anecdotal evidence of people on Twitter saying this, but you can see shout out this guy.
Speaker A
Guys, follow me on Twitter, by the way. I usually try to retweet helpful stuff.
Speaker A
And, um, the community is super helpful.
Speaker A
with more home wrecks and fewer ads, we hit 350 from 90k new visits in the last 5 days." So, once you start getting home wrecks, this stuff goes much faster.
Speaker A
Here's Here's another piece of anecdotal evidence. "That was my experience. Mine went up to 500 within days of hitting the algo. It may not be home wrecks directly, but could just be easier to get engaged players from home wrecks, as the algo
Speaker A
tends to recommend to players who already play similar games, as opposed to broader traffic from ads." Okay.
Speaker A
So, the TLDR is there's low-key a bot problem on Roblox. A lot of the plays you'll get from ads are not engaged players. You You guys have seen this when you run ads. Some of the players, they just don't move.
Speaker A
They're straight-up bots. It's unfortunate there's a bot problem on Roblox, okay? But, here's some common myths I want to dispel. Okay. Can you hit algo before the 16+ threshold of 500 players?
Speaker A
Answer yes okay? Very clearly, we hit algo here before the threshold. Okay? Now, should you spend a ton of money? I've seen stuff on Twitter people also saying, should you just spend a ton of money on ads?
Speaker A
Not necessarily. What's the best way to hit the 500 player threshold? This is going to wrap up this video right here.
Speaker A
Okay? Hitting algo, okay? If you don't know how to hit algo, watch my other videos.
Speaker A
I have a video talking about the Roblox algorithm explained like you're five. Okay? Hit algo. How do you hit algo? You spend money on ads. What did I do?
Speaker A
Here's what I did. Again, $16 a day for 11 days, okay? $180 total in ad spend.
Speaker A
Now, if this is too much money for you, you can't afford this, I got news for you, man. Okay? You got to do something called commissions, okay? Do commissions, get money for ads. Cuz right now, okay?
Speaker A
Right now, this is not that much more than you would have to previously spend to get an algo. Okay?
Speaker A
The only caveat is now there's like a there's like a second gate, which is like the 500 player threshold. But previously, you know, I would spend 100 120 bucks like for Farm and Die, dude, I spent probably $200 when we first
Speaker A
launched ads. Okay? So, spend is not really like it's not more expensive to hit this thing, in my opinion.
Speaker A
If anything, it's only slightly more expensive, okay? I hope this clears up a lot of questions people have.
Speaker A
And um shout out to the people on Twitter that are sharing their experience, and we're all going to get through this together. It's really not that big of a deal. You need to understand at the end of the day, this is for what? The safety
Speaker A
of children. Okay? So, chill out. Love you guys. Peace.
Topics:Roblox500 highly engaged playersRoblox updatechild safetyRoblox KidsRoblox Selectgame developmentRoblox adsplayer engagementRoblox moderation
