Product Liability Client Acquisition for Law Firms

Roblox, the world’s largest online gaming platform for children, is at the center of an escalating legal and public safety crisis. Though widely known as a digital playground with over 58.8 million daily users, recent lawsuits and media investigations suggest that Roblox has also become a hunting ground for predators. Families across the country are now coming forward with harrowing accounts of grooming, sexual abuse, and online coercion that began inside the Roblox ecosystem.

Firms nationwide have begun filing lawsuits on behalf of minors who were allegedly groomed, coerced, or assaulted by adults who first contacted them through Roblox. These early cases claim that Roblox Corporation failed to prevent, detect, or warn against these harms, and in some instances, actively ignored red flags raised internally. Roblox’s public image as a safe, child-centric gaming platform has come under intense scrutiny, and legal theories emerging from these lawsuits are testing the boundaries of tech company accountability.

Lawsuits and Legal Momentum

Recent filings illustrate the platform’s vulnerabilities:

- A 13-year-old New Jersey boy was groomed and victimized by a known predator he met via Roblox chat. The lawsuit describes a disturbing pattern of escalating messages, moving from seemingly harmless in-game communication to sexual coercion and eventual abuse.
- A Texas teenager was raped by an adult who had posed as a fellow gamer and arranged a meeting through Discord, after grooming her on Roblox. The predator had used Roblox’s chat features to build trust and migrate the conversation off-platform.
- A Florida minor was coerced into sharing explicit content after similar grooming began on Roblox and moved to Discord. The victim’s mother had enabled parental controls but was unaware of how easily predators could bypass them.

Kristen Gibbons Feden, a prominent civil rights attorney representing several of these families, stated: “We’re investigating hundreds of similar cases… the scale of this is only starting to be understood.” Parallel class actions are underway alleging consumer fraud: that parents were misled into trusting Roblox with their children’s safety, even as the platform allowed unsafe content and predator access. These lawsuits argue that Roblox misrepresented its safety features and failed to provide adequate protections despite repeated internal warnings.

The Data Paints a Clear Picture

In 2023 alone, Roblox was referenced in 13,316 reports of child exploitation made by electronic service providers to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. This marks a staggering increase from 2,973 in 2022. Roblox now ranks among the top platforms linked to reports of child sexual abuse material, despite being explicitly marketed to children under 13.

These numbers reflect only what was detected and reported. The true scope is likely far greater. Roblox’s massive user base of children, combined with anonymous avatars and unverified user accounts, creates an environment where predators can operate with little fear of detection. Increases in internal reporting at Roblox may signal more robust moderation, but they also underscore the platform’s persistent vulnerability.

Platform Design and Failures

Several key design flaws contribute to these risks:

Anonymous Accounts: With no meaningful age verification, adults can pose as children and easily create multiple accounts.
Chat Systems: Roblox’s moderation has proven inadequate, with filters easily bypassed by predators using codewords or abbreviations. Private messages and in-game chat allow predators to build relationships with young users over time.
User-Generated Content: Investigations uncovered sexually explicit roleplay games hosted within Roblox, exposing children to harmful themes. These games often remain active for long periods before being flagged and removed.
Cross-Platform Grooming: Offenders often move conversations to Discord or Snapchat, making abuse harder to detect. Roblox reportedly had internal awareness of this grooming pattern, but took little action to mitigate the risk.

Bloomberg’s 2024 investigation reported that Roblox employees raised repeated safety concerns, including hundreds of internal child abuse flags daily. Yet, many safety feature proposals were rejected in favor of user growth. According to the report, moderators were overwhelmed, and requests for more staff or automation tools were ignored.

Legal Theories Being Advanced

Law firms are applying multiple theories:

Product Liability: Asserting Roblox is defective by design—unsafe for its intended use by children. The platform’s open communication tools and lack of effective safeguards make it inherently dangerous.
Failure to Warn: Claiming the company should have disclosed known dangers to parents. Plaintiffs argue that marketing materials created a false sense of security.
Negligence: Arguing Roblox ignored foreseeable risks. Evidence includes internal safety reports and emails from staff raising alarm.
Civil Trafficking Claims: Using federal anti-trafficking statutes (18 U.S.C. §1595) to seek damages for victims, bypassing Section 230 immunity. This legal pathway, supported by recent legislative amendments, is gaining traction.

These theories are in the early stages but are gaining traction. Recent filings are carefully structured to avoid typical immunity defenses under the Communications Decency Act. Plaintiffs argue that they are targeting Roblox’s platform design and business practices, not third-party content.

Intake Criteria and Client Profile

Blue Sky Legal has developed a strict screening process to ensure high-quality client intake:

The victim must have been a minor when contact began on Roblox.
The case must involve sexual assault, trafficking, sextortion, or serious grooming.
Trauma must be documented (PTSD, suicide ideation, or therapy).
No ongoing relationship with the abuser.

This process targets only high-value, high-merit cases to ensure legal viability and ethical handling. In situations where physical abuse occurred or victims were coerced into creating explicit content, documentation through medical records, therapy logs, or criminal complaints strengthens the case.

Media Coverage and Public Scrutiny

Media attention has intensified:

Bloomberg’s exposé revealed that Roblox’s safety team ignored warnings.
ABC7 News profiled a family in Texas whose daughter was raped by a predator met through Roblox.
Other outlets, including NewsNation and the Associated Press, have spotlighted lawsuits nationwide.

These stories are shaping public opinion and increasing the likelihood of regulatory scrutiny. Roblox has avoided congressional hearings so far, but pressure is mounting. The FTC and state attorneys general may soon take an interest.

The Opportunity for Plaintiff Firms

This litigation is early. There is no MDL, few firms are involved, and high potential for leadership. Media attention is rising, public awareness is growing, and state-by-state statute-of-limitations windows are still open. States like New York, California, and New Jersey have favorable laws for childhood sexual abuse survivors, including extended look-back periods.

Blue Sky Legal delivers signed retainers at a targeted price range using compliant, unbranded national campaigns. Our intake infrastructure is purpose-built for trauma-informed cases and includes ongoing QA, fraud screening, and performance optimization. Campaigns can be launched in under 10 business days. We control all creative, targeting, and compliance protocols. Law firms can plug into our system and begin acquiring plaintiffs without building intake or ad operations from scratch.

Partnering with Blue Sky Legal allows plaintiff firms to:

Scale signed client acquisition nationally
Maintain ethical, trauma-informed intake
Receive qualified cases based on customized criteria
Minimize risk through fixed-fee intake models

For plaintiff firms looking to lead, not follow, this is the moment. We invite conversations with firms committed to protecting survivors and shaping one of the most consequential litigations in tech accountability.

References:

Emerging Roblox Exploitation Litigation

A Strategic White Paper from Blue Sky Legal