Explainer: How Australia nearly banned online games for under 16s

And how they're now on a knife's edge for future regulation.

Roblox: Now a proxy for this debate around children’s safety and games.

It was a policy blitz like no other. No less than 31 separate bills were passed by our government on 28 November, clearing the way for a Federal Election in Australia at some point next year. Among them, a controversial but broadly supported bill to ban those under 16 from accessing social media. It's generated headlines around the world as, once again, Australia has taken the front foot in attempting to legislate big tech — potentially paving the way for other jurisdictions to follow.

But what does this have to do with gaming?

In the lead-up to the social media bill passing parliament, panic emerged that online video games could be included in the ban. The definition for social media in the draft legislation was broad, and several media outlets had identified that this could mean that any and all online games, and services that facilitate online gaming — such as Steam, Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network — could be in the policy's crosshairs.

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While the bill has now passed the Senate and will become law at some point next year, this was later ruled out by a press release from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

'The bill ensures that the law is responsive to the ever-evolving nature of technology, while enabling continued access to messaging, online gaming, and services and apps that are primarily for the purposes of education and health support – like Headspace, Kids Helpline, Google Classroom and YouTube,' the release said.

But gaming isn't quite in the clear just yet. Concerns are emerging that with the legislation opening the door to this kind of regulation, we may be one media storm, moral panic or change of Communications Minister away from gaming tumbling its way into this policy. And with the number of employed journalists who understand and regularly communicate with the sector at an all-time low, it's an easier political target than ever before — especially during an election year.

So how did this all happen? And what could it mean for the year ahead? Here's a primer on Australia's new social media laws and how it interacted with gaming.

How did this policy to ban under-16s from social media emerge?

The iconic January Senate Hearings, where the CEOs from Meta, X, Discord, and Snap all testified to a backdrop of grieving and angry parents — offering everything but an apology — made headlines around the world. But we didn't exactly act on it immediately here in Australia.

A few months later in May, News Corp — Australia's largest publisher — launched a major campaign titled 'Let Them Be Kids' aimed at raising the age limit for social media to 16. It ran stories across its publications and also a major Change.org petition amassing over 54,000 signatures to date.

The more wry view — as pointed out by Australian independent news outlet Crikey — is that News Corp started campaigning on the bans after Meta pulled out of a major agreement to fund newsrooms for their content in late February.

We then saw the South Australian state government lead its own ban against social media use under 16, followed by a Federal Government policy announced in November. There was then a one-day industry consultation on this policy. Interested parties had less than a day's notice to submit their view before the government made decisions on the policy. For context, policy consultations in Australia tend to span weeks, if not months.

And now, as of 28 November, it's law.

What's the reception to the policy?

It's popular but contentious. Its popularity with key polling demographics and the emotion behind it is perhaps one of the key reasons it passed parliament so quickly and with so little in the way of debate and consultation.

It has, however, been challenged by human rights, children's rights advocates and digital industry academics, who broadly insist that it's both going to be hard to police and potentially the wrong approach for managing minors' interaction with this technology.

Reading through the shotgun one-day submissions to the policy, all parties acknowledge there is a problem, but those opposed to the ban are generally advocating for a more nuanced discussion and solution.

So how does this tie in with gaming?

An article by Australia's national broadcaster the ABC in September was the first to broadly throw online gaming into the mix, riffing off comments from South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.

“Online gaming — with those types of communicative methods where we know that there have been examples tragically of child-sex offenders seeking to prey on young people using those messaging within gaming formats — they would be covered under the proposition from [review author] Robert French unless they can demonstrate a need for or a justification for an exemption,” he said.

This line of commentary was perhaps compounded by the release of a report from stock-shorting analysis firm Hindenburg Research in October which described popular kids' game Roblox as a 'paedophile hellscape' saying that in the firm's own assessment, its avatars were able to engage in broadly accessible sex games and they found groups openly trading child pornography via the platform.

The company refuted the report in its own statement on the matter, pointing towards Roblox's parental controls, AI-powered moderation features and the fact that parents can deactivate online chat functions in the game.

So the bill has passed. Surely gaming is in the clear?

For now, yes. But it's on a knife's edge.

We're moving into an election year and this bill has essentially opened the door for future regulation of the gaming industry in this regard. That's the view of several experts, including Marcus Carter, Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at The University of Sydney. He penned an opinion piece for The Conversation arguing why games should be omitted from the ban.

His point: Looking back at how the ban came to fruition, we may be one moral panic away from a political knee-jerk against gaming. 'I'm gravely concerned that a trigger-happy Communications Minister will respond to a media panic and parental anxiety around digital gaming,' he said. He cited a report from ABC's 7:30 digging into Roblox and the Hindenburg report days after the social media laws passed as an example. Enough fuel on the fire and that could trigger a response.

In Carter's eyes, this should be a warning shot for gaming companies to start taking children's safety seriously. “It would be dishonest to say that video game companies are doing everything that they could to afford young Australians the best play environment,” he said, pointing out that every moral panic has a kernel of truth to it.

Technology law and policy expert, Leanne O'Donnell says that as the legislation currently reads, regardless of what's mentioned in the Prime Minister's press release, gaming could still be sniped by the policy at a later stage.

"The definition of an age-restricted social media platform is deliberately very broad. Many online gaming services would fall within the definition," she explains.

"The Explanatory Memorandum that accompanies the legislation explains that the Communications Minister intends to consult and make rules excluding messaging apps, online gaming services and platforms with the primary purpose of supporting the health or education of end users."

"However, there is no guarantee that any rules made by the Minister will exclude online gaming services."

So if the gaming industry wants to avoid this, what needs to happen now?

O'Donnell suggests the industry and concerned gamers engage with any future consultation process to put forward their position that gaming services be excluded from the scope of the minimum age requirement.

"Even if the Minister does ultimately make rules to exclude gaming, a new Minister — after the 2025 election, for example — could make new rules reversing this position," she says.

"That the Minister chose not to expressly exclude gaming from the new definition of age-restricted social media platform creates uncertainty for gamers and the industry."

But there's also a broader education piece for parents too, says Carter, considering groups representing them may be the key proponents of such a policy shift against online gaming. Many are motivated by protecting old values or ideals as to what childhood looks like, as opposed to managing and embracing what it's become, he says.

He points to an example from one of his studies on the matter: a parent complained to the researcher that their child's engagement with Roblox was getting out of hand as they were now using two screens to play the game. The researcher interviewed the child and found that they were booting up two simultaneous instances of Roblox so they could use one instance to recreate an Olivia Rodrigo music video and another instance to record it. Carter says that if the child was doing the same thing with a video camera in their bedroom, the parent would understand it and see it as normal behaviour. But in a gaming context, it's unknown and therefore immediately deemed as ominous.

What does Australia's games industry peak body have to say about this policy?

Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) is the most active industry body representing the video game industry. It didn't make a submission to the one-day policy inquiry process on the social media laws.

But its CEO Ron Curry did offer this statement to Infinite Lives when asked for its view: “Video games are fundamentally different from social media platforms. While social media is primarily about socialising and sharing content, the essence of video games lies in play and this distinction is crucial. Video games are also regulated by the National Classification Scheme, providing clear guidelines on age-appropriateness and content.”

Should those that game in Australia care?

That's a tricky one to answer. I'm not a parent, so perhaps that colours my view on this, but here we go. Most who game — especially those who are also parents — would likely agree that children's safety is an important issue and that gaming companies need to address it. Everyone deserves to feel safe and supported while they play online. Whether the classification system is enough is a complex question and one likely deserving of a deeper discussion.

But, if we take children's safety out of the equation: I think the gaming community, of whom the IGEA's studies say the majority are over 16, will more broadly care if a ban of online gaming platforms for those under that age leads gaming companies to simply abandon Australia as a market.

That would be a drastic move but not entirely unprecedented. Before the introduction of an R18+ classification category, we've seen game companies simply skip Australia for their launch. We're a much smaller market than plenty of other countries, and tailoring a product just for us at some point just becomes commercially unviable.

Are there global ramifications here too?

This wouldn't be the first time a country has attempted to regulate video games for minors. As detailed by The Conversation, China originally introduced legislation against game time for those under 18 in 2019. That was amended in 2021 to introduce limits on online gaming for minors to one hour per week, between 8pm to 9pm on Fridays. However, a recent study found that 77% of minors evaded the checks and measures — which included facial recognition — aimed at preventing them from playing games.

It would be naive to assume that Australia is not the test case here for other countries looking at similar laws, including the US. University of Sydney's Professor Carter agrees: “I'd be amazed if this didn't have an impact on how this global conversation is happening. My only hope for other countries is that they don't rush this through.”

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What I'm Playing: Resident Evil Village

Lady Dimitrescu, we hardly knew ye.

There's a lot of hot takes going around about what we should expect to see in terms of trailers at this year's Game Awards on Friday (AEST). But for my money, we're overdue some news on a new Resident Evil game.

Capcom typically pumps out these titles every two to three years, alternating between remaking an older game and pushing the overall franchise forward. The last title was a remake released in 2023, so perhaps we're in for a new game? For posterity, I recently replayed Resident Evil Village, which was initially released in 2021. It's not the latest in the franchise, but in terms of the series' notoriously bonkers story, it's the most current.

The basic premise is that the protagonist of the last game, Ethan Winters, has a baby and moves to Europe after the horrific events of Resident Evil 7. Just as Winters and his wife Mia are settling into their new life, their baby daughter is kidnapped, taken to a strange Eastern European village, and Ethan sets out to find her.

A new biohazard? Tick. A conspiracy? Tick. Wacky, larger-than-life characters that aren't entirely supported by the plot? We have a trifecta!

Village continues with the series trend of pushing into a first-person perspective, making it more akin to other shooters like Call of Duty than your typical survival horror game. Village also leans more into the shooter genre, with significantly more action and gunplay sequences than what we saw in the prior game, Resident Evil 7.

Arguably the best part of this game is actually in its first few hours in Castle Dimitrescu — the home of the game's viral giant vampire lady. Not only is Lady Dimitrescu a really interesting character, but the maze-like setup of her castle and your lack of firepower and resources really amp up the game's tension. She ruthlessly pursues you around the castle, making even mundane areas tricky to navigate. On harder difficulties, it feels like she's got a light jog on when she's hunting you. Sadly, she's removed from the game within its first five hours, despite having a starring role in all the game's previews and hype trailers. Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments of this release.

Can I also say: Playing on harder difficulties doesn't exactly make the game more fun. I gave it a go on the game's ultra-hard 'Village of Shadows' mode and didn't really find it that enjoyable. Most guides on this suggest unlocking weapons with infinite ammo as a strategy for getting through this mode — which completely defeats the point of a survival horror game in the first place.

Village sits in a weird space where I wouldn't recommend it as a shooter, but I wouldn't say it's a solid survival horror game either. The remake of Silent Hill 2 is perhaps my go-to for the best example of the latter from this year. There are genuine moments of horror in Village — including a lot of body mutilation — but the resource management tension that these games usually conjure just isn't there. It's hard to feel scared when you're running around with a semi-auto shotgun and a fully automatic rifle.

For what it's worth, the game is still very fun and has aged pretty well. It's also quite quick and doesn't muck around, coming in at around the 12-hour mark for a playthrough. The plot beats are questionable, but hey, it's a Resident Evil game.

Depending on what's announced on Friday, there could be a brief resurgence for this game ahead of a new release next year. But if a new game is coming, I really hope it will be a remake of Resident Evil: Code Veronica.

Worth trying if you like: The Evil Within series, Dead Space, Alan Wake 2.

Available on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, macOS, Nintendo Switch (the port likely isn’t great), iOS, iPadOS.

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