Roblox China Shuts Down for Optimization

Grace Edwards 14 Jan 2022

Mobile app Roblox China, also known as LuoBuLeSi, stopped working at the beginning of December. It had been launched five months before that. Roblox had been facing diverse challenges and decided to shut down this project for some time. The developers didn’t note when they would launch the game again. They’re grateful that players tried their beta version, and Roblox promises they will optimize all the issues in the future. Still, the message wasn’t official, so game re-release may happen in a few months or a few years. 

Actually, Roblox is not the first mobile game that stopped testing its app in China. Earlier, Epic Games shut down Fortnite testing. Epic Games didn’t explain the reason for this decision. China has strict content rules, so Fortnite gained a lot of modifications. Roblox China also made some adaptations, but all the same, some of the features were censored. Also, the global version of Steam is banned in China. Instead, it has a limited version with 103 games. Maybe it’s one of the reasons why games don’t stay for long on the Chinese market. 

Roblox might also have another reason for shut down. It faced Chinese competitors like ByteDance-owned Reworld. China is trying to fight video games addiction in children. That’s why their games have priority among Chinese users. There is a curfew that forbids kids to play games between 10 PM and 8 AM. Not so far ago, a new restriction allowing children to play only 3 hours a week appeared. It’s not known whether it helps to cope with the problem of games overuse or not, but it influences gaming development for sure. 

Although LuoBuLeSi may need a lot of improvements, the Roblox representative said that they were planning to do long-term investments to reach the acceptable game version for China. It will be nice to read what you think about this news. Why did Roblox shut down the app in your opinion?