As players engage with a game, short-form videos play endlessly. Enjoying short-form media alongside gameplay, users fail to find a moment to stop playing. Developers, in turn, can anticipate greater exposure and revenue.
Roblox recently decided to restrict in-game short-form video content when paired with gameplay features for young users. Effective August 25, content where short videos play automatically and grant in-game rewards for continuous viewing is excluded from Roblox Kids and Roblox Select. The policy does not ban short-form videos or infinite scrolling outright. Rather, it is interpreted as a measure taking into account the impact on its core demographic of children and teenagers.
Short-form video enters games, captivating playtime
Last year, in 2025, Roblox introduced its own short-form video service, “Roblox Moments”. The company subsequently releasedopers could integrate the same functionality into individual games
On Roblox Moments, users record and post up to 30-second clips of their gameplay. Other users can watch the videos and jump directly into the featured game. Roblox announced that more than 240 million videos were created within roughly a month of launching the video feature.
Short-form videos became both a marketing tool to introduce new games and a device to retain users. Roblox also explained that related features could expand user engagement, return visits, new user onboarding, and monetization.
There is a clear incentive for developers to keep users playing longer. Roblox’s recommendation algorithm factors playtime, return frequency, and Robux spending into game visibility. It also operates Creator Rewards, which pays developers 5 Robux when certain paying users play a game for more than 10 minutes in a day.
Not all playtime translates directly into revenue. However, the system clearly advantages games in recommendations and revenue the longer users stay and return. Short-form video can fill the downtime while characters grind or wait for currency to accumulate, slowing user churn.
Infinite feeds tied to in-game rewards: Children unable to stop
A prime example of combining short-form video feeds with character progression systems is “Steal An Egg”.
In this game, players steal eggs to obtain pets, then use the currency earned by their pets to upgrade their bases and treadmills. Training on a treadmill increases the character’s movement speed, granting advantages when traveling to farther zones or escaping after stealing eggs from other players.
Before the feature was changed, vertical short-form videos played continuously while characters ran on the treadmill. As one video ended, the next began, and the character’s speed steadily increased as long as the player remained on the screen.
For young players, this structure made it difficult to separate the two activities. While watching the video directly was not strictly required to increase speed, it appeared as though the character only grew by remaining on the screen where the short-form videos played. Closing the game or navigating away felt like forfeiting an opportunity for progression.
Children are more vulnerable to such designs than adults. The American Academy of Pediatrics pointed out that for children whose impulse control is still developing, autoplay and infinite scroll make it difficult to stop consuming content and can extend screen time on digital devices.
In-game rewards provide yet another reason not to stop. Videos transition seamlessly into the next clip while speed and currency continuously accumulate in the game. Disappearing are the “stopping points”—such as completing a round or clearing a stage—where players can re-evaluate whether to keep playing. Prolonged play time also carries the risk of displacing sleep, physical activity, and other daily routines.
Just one month after launch, on August 26, “Steal An Egg” recorded roughly 650,000 concurrent players and over 394 million cumulative visits. As social media-style feeds and progression rewards merged inside a game visited by so many users, questions arose regarding the boundaries of what should be permissible in games aimed at children.
In response, Roblox decided to exclude games that feature an infinite media feed, autoplay, and continuous viewing rewards from Roblox Kids and Roblox Select. Users aged 5 to 15 who previously played these games will also lose access until developers modify the features and pass a re-evaluation. Rather than banning the game for all users, Roblox blocked access first for children and adolescents who are more vulnerable to such mechanics.
Restrictions applied when all three conditions met: Infinite feed, autoplay, and rewards
Roblox’s solution is not to eliminate short-form videos entirely, but to sever the connection between endless viewing and in-game rewards.
The policy applies to games that meet all three conditions: having a media feed composed of short videos or images; displaying content that loops, plays automatically, or scrolls infinitely; and requiring continuous viewing to earn in-game currency or progression rewards.
A game can be subject to the policy even if it does not explicitly promise rewards. This is because the restrictions extend to structures that lead an average user to believe that continuous viewing is necessary to receive rewards. Games violating these conditions will be removed from Roblox Kids and Roblox Select and must undergo re-evaluation after modifying their features.
On the other hand, short-form feeds without viewing rewards remain permitted. Rewarded video ads that users initiate themselves—with fixed end times and view counts—are also exempt. The line drawn by Roblox lies not in the video format itself, but in whether the design allows users to stop on their own.
This policy does not eliminate the underlying competition for playtime. The platform structure where longer dwell time boosts recommendation visibility and revenue remains intact. Roblox has established a baseline safeguard to prevent that competition from driving young users into endless video consumption.
The remaining issue is enforcement. Roblox has not disclosed the list or number of games excluded under the policy. Nor has it specified the exact criteria used to determine whether a player feels compelled to watch videos for rewards. Without visibility into the application process, it will be difficult for outsiders to detect if developers maintain the same underlying structure merely by slightly modifying the UI layout.
Responsibility cannot rest solely on children and parents. After all, Roblox provided developers with short-form creation tools and established a system where play time and return visits translate into visibility and revenue. If a platform fosters competition to maximize user retention, it must also guarantee natural stopping points for its younger players.
The central question raised by this issue is not whether short-form video belongs inside games. It is whether games should drive children to continuously watch endless videos to avoid missing out on in-game rewards. Through this policy, Roblox answered that it should not. Now, it must prove that answer through consistent review and transparent enforcement.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of AI. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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