Meep Metropolis is a Roblox social sport harking back to Membership Penguin or Toontown the place customers hang around, embellish houses, and fulfill their slice of life fantasy. A minimum of, that is the pitch. In follow, Meep Metropolis has gained a status for being a courting spot filled with underage children cloaked in sexually charged avatars. However in late August, crew behind Meep Metropolis did away with lots of the mechanics that made that type of NSFW play potential. And in doing so, it is now gone from being the largest sport on Roblox in 2018 to barely attracting a few hundred individuals directly in 2025.
Earlier than the replace, Meep Metropolis allowed gamers to make use of customized bios in addition to bespoke avatars. Neither of those options are nefarious at their core, however customers took benefit of the liberty the mechanics afforded them. Older footage of the sport exhibits how gamers would promote their age alongside suggestive messages meant to draw the eye of different gamers. “I am a boy however a sweetheart…f4 m3 and you will get the milk,” one bio in 2024 learn. “aye flip me up am tryni f4” one other avatar displayed. Usually, these bios would inform others what the consumer’s age was, and what their social media handles on different web sites have been as properly.
Roblox’s blocky avatars are considerably restricted in what they will depict, however customers can get inventive inside these constraints. On the tamer finish, Meep Metropolis would see customers exhibiting off numerous digital pores and skin or sporting wedding ceremony attire that signaled that the participant was eager about romantic interactions. On the extra excessive finish, gamers would log onto the sport with big digital genitalia hanging from the avatar’s decrease area.
A number of years after its launch in 2016, Meep Metropolis additionally gained a “get together” characteristic that allowed customers to ask others to their digital abodes. Inevitably, this characteristic deteriorated into digital orgies. Information of this phenomenon hit mainstream media, which then prompted Roblox to take motion towards the sport. Meep Metropolis was then pulled from Roblox quickly, and later got here again with out the get together characteristic. Shortly after was the primary time that Meep Metropolis noticed a major drop in customers.
Extra lately, Roblox as a platform has been catching a ton of warmth due to a slate of lawsuits, some government-affiliated, which argue that its digital worlds don’t go far sufficient to guard youngsters. In response to that outcry, Roblox promised to institute safety modifications for the platform. In a Aug. 15 video explaining the corporate’s thought course of for moderating its platform, founder and CEO Dave Baszucki acknowledged that he usually hears individuals telling Roblox that it ought to take down video games like Meep Metropolis. However, Baszucki recommended, pulling a sport is seen internally as an excessive final measure.
“We at all times need to work with our builders first and provides them a chance to make modifications to the design and see if that works to mitigate unhealthy conduct,” stated Eliza Jacobs, a member of Roblox’s security and civility crew, within the video. In any other case, Jacobs stated, Roblox can be taking down a sport as a result of the customers have been behaving badly. “That may open up an abuse vector,” Jacobs defined, noting that it might then turn into straightforward for gamers to begin campaigns towards video games or creators they disliked.
“That does not appear honest in any respect,” Jacobs stated.
Quickly after this proverbial city corridor, some Roblox video games will get pulled down. Builders are reportedly being despatched a questionnaire to make sure that their experiences fall inside Roblox’s tips, and if they do not fill it out by Sept. 30, the sport might turn into unplayable.
A number of days after Roblox defined its moderation course of, Meep Metropolis underwent main modifications. The sport now not permits for customized bios and avatars, which have been the options that made NSFW play so distinguished. And now, a few weeks later, the playerbase is within the pits. In response to ROMonitor, Meep Metropolis went from having a concurrent participant excessive of simply over 24,000 to now solely reaching just a few hundred individuals directly. At this time, on common, there are solely below 150 individuals logged into Meep Metropolis at any given second. The common playtime has additionally gone down for many who are nonetheless having fun with Meep Metropolis, in line with statistics on ROMonitor.
Curiously, there’s been no clarification for why these modifications have been instituted. Neither Roblox nor Alex Newtron, the creator of Meep Metropolis, responded to a request for remark from gamexplore. Roblox has not publicly said that it labored with or pressured Meep Metropolis into eliminating its controversial options, nor has Newtron made any statements to his neighborhood of customers. However given the timing of the modifications, alongside Roblox’s admission that it’s conscious of Meep Metropolis’s status vis a vis working with builders to make modifications, one might surmise the 2 incidents are associated. Nevertheless, it’s simply as potential that Newtron took the initiative to transform the sport himself in mild of current occasions.
Regardless of the case, the Meep Metropolis neighborhood was hit unawares, as evidenced by screenshots of confused gamers floating across the day after customized options have been pulled.
It is a step in the suitable route, however as a complete, Roblox remains to be contending with immense pressures in terms of little one security. Past the federal government lawsuits, Roblox can be going through criticism for banning a consumer named Schlepp, who was identified for monitoring down suspected predators in Roblox. That anger is widespread sufficient that you may spot protestors among the many few who’re nonetheless enjoying Meep Metropolis; their usernames will say issues like “free Schlepp.” And whereas Roblox has instituted new measures, like tech that may average video games on the fly, it is unlikely to cease vigilante conduct from customers. If something, the elevated public scrutiny is resulting in extra fan-led initiatives to trace down doubtlessly problematic Roblox customers.
In the case of Meep Metropolis, its affiliation with degenerate content material arguably modified your complete trajectory of the sport and the way will probably be remembered. In 2018, when it was nonetheless blowing up and attracting tens of millions of customers each month, Meep Metropolis was readily in contrast in mainstream media to video games like Pokémon Go and Sweet Crush by way of influence and affect. The sport was important sufficient that Roblox even launched Meep Metropolis motion figures on the top of its fame. Its present state is a far cry from its heyday, when it was common sufficient that its creator needed to implement a queue to triage the sheer variety of individuals enjoying.
“I grew up with meep metropolis 😭that is so unhappy 😞,” one Redditor says in a thread discussing Meep Metropolis’s downfall. “Actually I discover it extra enjoyable,” one other opined. “The smaller neighborhood makes it method higher as a result of it’s principally regular individuals.”
