REGULATION,
TECHNOLOGY, AND RESPONSIBILITY
Andrew Wailes, CEO & founder of PlaySafe ID, on understanding a new era of player protection
Ascend the End © Wasiona Studio, promotional imagery by Milan Zeremski A
bove anything else, video games should provide safe and age-appropriate spaces for their users. Clearly, it is a moral, ethical obligation to
keep games safe — especially for younger players. For decades, age ratings have served as the prime defence in the effort to separate children and mature content. That system is well intended, and remains both
important and valid. But as a singular means to protect the young it was always fallible. Particularly in the boxed era, there were plenty of ways to get around the system. Fast-forward to today, and we find ourselves deep in
the live era. Increasingly, protecting children is about more than shielding them from mature content. From toxic behaviour and inappropriate user-generated content to bots, cheats, and other bad actors, games’ expansion has exposed them to all manner of threats. That is not to say games are inherently dangerous. Rather, they have become vessels for content and contributors — most of which are entirely appropriate. A tiny minority are undermining things for the rest of us. As a result, there is now more onus than ever on
protecting younger users — and increasingly all of us – from damaging content. That is a significant part of the reason new child protection legislation is emerging
22 | MCV/DEVELOP October/November 2025
globally, in an effort to strengthen protection in an increasingly complex medium. There’s a commercial imperative to keeping games
safe, too — even if it is a secondary motivation to the ethical one. Safe games retain players. Toxic and inappropriate behaviours don’t only push users away — they damage the reputation of games and the studios and publishers behind them. Even cheating, which can reasonably be framed as trivial compared to keeping users safe, can have a profound impact on success. When we surveyed consumers about their perceptions of cheating in video games, 55% of players revealed that they have reduced or entirely stopped spending in titles afflicted by cheats. That is a significant amount of potential lost revenue. There also remains something of a perception
problem. When most games were sold in boxes, retailers often told stories of parents trying to purchase games with mature ratings for their children. Observers at the time speculated that this came from early console marketing promoting video games as toys. While plenty of concern was expressed at the time around violence and addiction, the importance of age ratings seemed under-recognised. Today, a lack
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