Kids running on virtual treadmills while an AI-slop feed scrolls in front of their faces. That was the image that got Roblox in trouble this week, and now the company has written a rule against it.
Roblox Corporation told developers this week that “games that reward ongoing media feed consumption” will no longer be allowed in Roblox Kids and Select. The restriction lands days after a game called Steal an Egg went viral on the platform with more than 500,000 concurrent players.
“This affects games that combine media feeds, autoplay, infinite scroll, autoscroll, and rewards or implied rewards for watching,” Roblox said.
What Steal an Egg actually made kids do
The premise is a livestock sim. You raise eggs. Simple enough.
The twist is that you can skip the raising entirely and steal eggs from other players instead. That threat pushes everyone to pump up their speed stat, and there are two ways to do it: spend Robux, the currency you buy with real money, or run on an in-game treadmill.
Those treadmills come with a “feed” function. While your character jogs and your numbers climb, you doomscroll a strange TikTok-equivalent stuffed with AI nonsense. Pay-to-win monetization, idle-game grinding and social media brain rot, all bolted into one depressing package.
The comparison everyone reached for was “Fifteen Million Merits,” the Black Mirror episode where people pedal stationary bikes in front of screens they can’t turn off. It wasn’t a stretch. The clips circulating on social media looked close enough to the real thing that the joke stopped landing as a joke.
Steal an Egg was briefly pulled from the Roblox store after the backlash. It’s back now, without the feed feature.
The apology tour continues
A Roblox representative offered this on the guidelines update: “Roblox is built for fun and connection. As part of our ongoing commitment to providing age-appropriate experiences, we have updated our policies to help ensure games on Roblox reflect the safe, positive environment we aim to foster. We work closely with our creator community to provide clear guidance, and we regularly review and evolve our policies to stay consistent with that goal.”
Read that again and notice how much heavier the company’s week has been than a treadmill controversy.
Two weeks ago the U.S. Senate opened an investigation into Roblox over allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation of minors on the platform. “Over the past decade, police have arrested numerous individuals for committing serious acts of violence and harm against children they met via Roblox, including grooming, sexual abuse, kidnapping, rape, and even murder,” reads a letter from Josh Hawley and Dick Durbin.
Numerous states have opened similar investigations. Roblox has responded with ID checks and other precautionary measures against predatory behavior.
The most popular game on the platform was also its worst look
Steal an Egg wasn’t some obscure experiment buried three pages deep in the catalog. It was the hottest game on Roblox, half a million people playing at once, and its central loop was teaching children that the way to get ahead is to either hand over money or stare at a feed until the counter goes up.
The company has now banned that design for its youngest users. The game it came from is still there, treadmills and all, just quieter.
