Online gaming platform Roblox recently announced that it would be taking its first steps to introduce voice chat by opening up a feature it’s calling ‘Spatial Voice’ for select developers in an invitation-only beta.
According to ANI, Roblox’s chief product officer Manuel Bronstein, in a blog post said, “With Spatial Voice, Roblox creators will begin to test developing experiences where conversations can happen realistically, mirroring how we listen and respond to the world around us each day.”
Based on this limited description, it sounds like Spatial Voice will attempt to reflect the way voices carry in the real world and require you to be near another player to speak them.
Adding the voice chat of any kind into the Roblox immediately raises concerns about how the company will moderate conversations, especially the Roblox’s massive popularity given to the children.
But Roblox plans to roll out the feature slowly, giving access first to 5,000 developers and all of them will be 13 or older.
The addition of voice chat could make Roblox an even more popular place to hang out and help it to better compete with other metaverse-y games like ‘Fortnite’.
But in taking this slow approach, Roblux seems to try to get ahead of the challenges voice chat could bring to the platform.