In short: Roblox is introducing three mandatory age-gated account tiers -Kids (5-8), Select (9-15), and standard (16+) – starting mid-May, segregating content and chat access by age group. The move follows lawsuits from eight US state attorneys general over child safety failures and builds on the facial age verification system mandated in January. Developers must now pay $5/month and verify their identity for content to appear in younger tiers. But the system’s credibility is under pressure: age-verified accounts appeared on eBay for $4 within days of the verification mandate, and Wired reported the facial scans could be bypassed by toddlers.

Roblox is splitting its 85-million-plus daily active user base into three age-segregated tiers, Kids (5-8), Select (9-15), and standard (16+),  starting mid-May, its most significant structural change since mandating facial age verification in January. The move follows lawsuits from at least eight US state attorneys general over child safety failures, but the efficacy of the age-checking technology underpinning the system remains deeply contested.

The three account types align with the platform’s existing content maturity labels: Minimal, Mild, Moderate, and Restricted. Kids accounts are the most locked down, with chat disabled by default and access limited to Minimal and Mild experiences only. Select accounts, covering the 9-to-15 bracket, unlock Moderate content and permit chat with users in a similar age range and parent-approved “trusted friends.” At 16, users graduate automatically to a full Roblox account, though Restricted content remains gated until 18.

The rollout should be complete globally by June, Roblox says. Users who have not completed an age check by then will be funnelled into a Kids-equivalent experience with no chat access and no games rated above Mild, a move that effectively makes age verification mandatory for anyone who wants to use the platform as designed.

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Age-gating the audience creates a content-labelling problem at scale. Roblox hosts millions of user-created experiences, and ensuring each carries the correct maturity rating is a prerequisite for the tiered system to function. The company’s solution layers three requirements on developers: identity verification, two-step authentication, and a $5-per-month Roblox Plus subscription. The logic, per Roblox, is that these hurdles demonstrate “a long-term commitment to the platform” and will incentivise accurate self-labelling.

Where self-labelling fails, AI moderation is supposed to catch the gap. Roblox says it will monitor game instances in real time, checking that on-screen activity and in-chat behaviour match the declared maturity label. The company also says users aged 16 and over “play new games first,” providing a buffer before younger users encounter fresh content, though as Engadget’s Jessica Conditt noted, the claim relies on an overgeneralisation that cannot guarantee a child will never encounter a mislabelled experience before the AI flags it.

The verification problem

Everything in the tiered system depends on users being the age they claim to be. As of January 2026, Roblox requires all users worldwide to complete a facial age estimation scan, powered by third-party provider Persona, to access chat. The technology places users into one of six brackets (under 9, 9-12, 13-15, 16-17, 18-20, 21+) and deletes the biometric data immediately after processing. Persona’s age estimation models achieved a mean absolute error of 1.4 years for users under 18 in testing certified by the UK’s Age Check Certification Scheme.

But a 1.4-year margin of error in a system with age brackets as narrow as three years is not trivial. Wired reported in January that the checks could be circumvented by toddlers, and within days of the mandate taking effect, age-verified Roblox accounts appeared for sale on eBay for as little as $4, allowing anyone, including adults seeking access to children’s chat spaces, to bypass the system entirely. Social media has since been flooded with videos of users defeating the facial scan using celebrity photographs, virtual avatars, and drawn-on facial hair.

Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s Chief Safety Officer, acknowledged the challenge in a press briefing ahead of today’s announcement. “If we get it wrong, we offer users multiple ways to correct that,” he said, adding that the platform continuously monitors user behaviour against age-check data and will re-prompt verification if the two diverge.

Eight states and counting

The context for all of this is legal, not voluntary. Attorneys general in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky, Iowa, Tennessee, Nebraska, and Arkansas have filed lawsuits against Roblox over child safety failures. Texas AG Ken Paxton described the platform as a “digital playground that conceals predators.” Louisiana’s was the first consumer protection case brought directly against Roblox by a state attorney general. In 2026, a federal multidistrict litigation was approved, consolidating cases under Judge Seeborg in California.

The lawsuits allege that Roblox’s design and moderation failures exposed children to grooming, explicit content, and exploitation. Against that backdrop, the tiered account system reads less like a proactive safety initiative and more like a legal necessity, the minimum structural change required to demonstrate that the company is taking the problem seriously.

What the tiers actually change

Two new parental control features arriving in June strengthen the system’s practical utility. Parents will be able to block any game and manage direct chat access until a child turns 16, closing a previous loophole that allowed over-13s to unblock experiences independently. A second feature lets parents approve specific games outside their child’s default age bracket on a case-by-case basis, addressing the common scenario of a younger sibling wanting to play with an older one.

Roblox says over half its user base has already completed age verification. The company reported 85 million daily active users in Q4 2024, growing to 144 million by Q4 2025,  a 69 per cent increase. Of verified users, 35 per cent are under 13, 38 per cent are between 13 and 17, and 27 per cent are adults. The platform’s revenue hit $4.9 billion in 2025, with guidance of $6 billion to $6.2 billion for 2026.

The structural change is real: for the first time, a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old on Roblox will inhabit meaningfully different products. Whether the technology separating them can withstand a $4 eBay listing is the question the attorneys general, and the parents, will be watching most closely.