Hello Developers,

Today, we have some news to share as part of our continuing commitment to build a better, safer platform for all players. Starting in August, we will be rolling out new updates to enhance the discoverability of Filtering Enabled games.

First, we’d like to announce a name change. Filtering Enabled is a reasonable name for a developer feature, but as we make it a larger part of our platform strategy, the name will need to be understandable by users and parents in addition to developers.

Moving forward, Filtering Enabled games will simply be called “games.” From a user perspective, the default status of a Roblox game is that it is secure and that it has Filtering Enabled. Games that do not have Filtering Enabled, on the other hand, will be called “Experimental Mode games.” The thought here is that new developers are experimenting with the Roblox platform and, as such, their games are in “Experimental Mode.” Experienced developers, however, will make games that are secure and stable – thus, not in experimental mode.

What does the new name mean for you? Nothing. In a couple of weeks, there will be a name change in Studio. If you had Filtering Enabled, you will have experimental mode disabled. If you did not have Filtering Enabled, your game will have experimental mode enabled. No changes are required on your end; this will happen automatically. All new projects will now start in experimental mode. Developers will need to disable the experimental mode flag to make new projects discoverable.

We want to encourage everyone who hasn’t already turned on Filtering Enabled to do so now. The majority of our top games have already done this.This provides a much better and more consistent experience for your users and has always been a Roblox game development best practice. To incentivize this change, experimental mode games will only be visible to users over 13 on the front games page, while all other games will be visible to all ages on the games page. We want to give you as much time as possible to update your game so we will roll this change out slowly by age group. The earliest we could see this roll out for our youngest group of users (6 and under) is August 10. This is not a hard date and may be later than August 10, but we can promise it will not be before then. We will alert developers of an exact date before the change is made.

Shortly after this, we will be prioritizing non-experimental mode games (f.k.a. Filtering Enabled games) in search results to users under 13. We want users on Roblox to find consistent and secure content on our platform. This change will ensure that younger users are finding content best suited for them. As before, we will roll this out by age group and give notice of when this will happen. This will not happen before August 12.

We have recently provided you with information so that you know what percentage of your games’ visitors are under 13. You can use this information to estimate the loss of visits and profits if you choose to leave your game in experimental mode. As under 13 users make up a large portion of our audience, we highly encourage you to make sure your game is secure.

We know this is a big change and we want to make it as easy as possible to update your game. In order to help developers better understand these requirements and assist them in implementing it in their games, we have released new wiki articles explaining the technology. This includes information on Developing with FE, Converting existing places to FE, and an explanation of Remote Events and Functions. If you still have questions, please reach out to other members of the developer community.

We believe these changes will positively influence the Roblox ecosystem. Games with proper security settings will have more opportunities to thrive on the top sorts, and developers working on major projects with Filtering Enabled will also have an easier time reaching the front page. As we continue to evolve our community safety standards, we appreciate your help in making Roblox a fun, safe, and creative community for everyone.

Thank you,

Developer Relations Team