Last year, the watchdog group Truth in Advertising (TINA) filed a complaint with the FTC over Roblox’s “deceptive advertising” reach towards younger players, claiming that “brands [the game] has invited into its metaverse, […] along with undisclosed avatar brand influencers and AI-controlled brand bots, are running roughshod on the platform, manipulating and exploiting consumers” and calling out several “advergames” that try to disguise themselves as actual games.
At last, Roblox has decided to respond to the matter with some new policy changes that will hide ads from players who are 13 and younger. Prohibited ads will include those that promote things like multilevel marketing companies, financial services, and crypto, along with ads that ask for charitable donations.
In addition, the policy states “content design must not obscure or interfere with required disclosures in a way that makes users believe they are engaging with non-advertising content” and that immersive portal ads “must not mislead users about the destination of the portal.” So yes, Roblox. is still going to be a place for immersive ads; it will just (hopefully) be more forward about it, Pepsiman style.
