Roblox removes games depicting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but only after a BBC inquiry

There are plenty of shooter games out there in the discovery page of Roblox, but some creators of these kinds of games saw fit to use the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a backdrop, and the operators of Roblox didn’t do anything about two such games despite their violation of its EULA until the BBC brought them to light.

The two games in question were called War on Larkhiv: Ukraine and Battle for Ukraine. The former title had players fighting each other as either Russians or Ukrainians in a thinly veiled fictional version of the city of Kharkiv, while the latter let players watch footage of bombings that took place in Ukrainian cities like Mariupol. According to BBC’s reporting, War on Larkhiv had raked in 90,000 plays in less than two weeks, while Battle for Ukraine had been listed on the platform for months.

When BBC reporters brought these two titles to the attention of Roblox’s operators, it removed them within four hours. “We have strict Community Standards which govern the portrayal of real-world events. Both of the experiences in question have been removed for violating our standards following an assessment by our moderation team,” said a Roblox spokesperson.