Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson is moving to lead a class action lawsuit against Roblox. The legal action follows significant financial losses reported by the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio.
State officials claim that the gaming company misled investors regarding its safety measures. According to the court filing, Roblox marketed its platform as a secure environment for children while failing to implement necessary protections against online predators and inappropriate content. When the company eventually disclosed that safety adjustments would negatively impact user growth, share prices dropped and resulted in a combined $21.5 million loss for the two pension funds.
Records indicate that Roblox projected a $1 billion reduction in annual revenue following the implementation of new age verification requirements and communication limits. The company reported that over half of its daily users had not completed the mandatory age verification process, which restricted their access to chat features and stalled platform expansion.
Attorney General Wilson is requesting that a federal judge appoint the two Ohio pension funds as lead plaintiffs in the litigation. The motion also seeks to consolidate several related shareholder lawsuits currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The case names Roblox executives David Baszucki, Naveen Chopra, and Michael Guthrie as defendants.