Video game industry believes EU KIDS Act will kill small creators and old games

A new law aimed at protecting children could kill off old video games and threaten small developers, industry trade groups have warned.

The EU Kids Act was unveiled by commission president Ursula von der Leyen last month as a chance to “give childhood back to our children” and put parents “in the driving seat”.

It would require videogames to be catered to children by default with stringent requirements including an eight-hour nighttime lock-out, a ban on screenshots, and guardian supervision.

Gamers wanting to play the full version of games would have to pass age verification checks to access features, like multi-player tournaments or mystery boxes.

The European Commission is gathering feedback on the act with respondents quick to criticise the threat posed to videogame makers.

Between this, the social media stuff and whatever further lockdown attempts are in the pipeline, that's an incredible amount of incentive to find hacks and workarounds. We'll end up with a generation that actually gives two hoots about owning and controlling their hardware and media, and has the engineering skills to achieve that.

A somewhat roundabout way of accomplishing that goal, but I'll take it!