Roblox, a Pandemic Hit, Leaves Children in Timeout

Gaming platform crashed Friday
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 30, 2021 3:35 PM CDT
Hit Gaming Platform for Children Crashes
The gaming platform Roblox is displayed on a tablet.   (AP Photo/Leon Keith)

To the dismay of millions of children—and the parents trying to keep them busy and cope with their anguish—the popular gaming platform Roblox crashed Friday, and the company was still trying to restore service Saturday. "The scariest part of Halloween this year is Roblox being down," lamented Twitter user @NikilisRBX. In a statement Friday on social media, San Mateo, California-based Roblox apologized and said it was "still making progress" on the outage, the AP reports.

The cause of the problems was unclear, but Roblox said that it was "not related to any specific experiences or partnerships on the platform." This was apparently meant to quash rumors that the trouble was caused by a free burrito giveaway at a digital Chipotle on the Roblox platform. For its part, Chipotle tweeted: "Miss u Roblox." On the Roblox platform, players can create their own games and play with other users. It became wildly popular after the coronavirus pandemic closed schools and kept children indoors looking for something to do.

The rumor is that a Chipotle promotion, which promised $1 million in free burritos, was to blame, but the company quashed that, per the Verge. The crash did begin shortly after the promotion began. According to numbers compiled by the social media consulting firm Backlinko, Roblox has more than 43 million active users a day (up from 14 million in 2016), 40 million games, and 9.5 million developers. The most popular game on Roblox, according to Backlinko, is "Adopt Me!"—which allows users to raise digital pets. (The company had a successful stock market premiere in March.)

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