German Gaming Body says KIDS Act might affect gaming.
Managing director Felix Falk stated “The European Commission is under enormous pressure to swiftly tighten youth protection rules on social media. In the process, the youth protection that works well for games is in danger of becoming collateral damage.”
“The EU KIDS Act should make the proven USK and PEGI age ratings, which parents have trusted for decades, the standard for games in Europe. Games are not social networks, and they need their own rules. Children have a right to protection, and a right to play. To achieve this, the successful system of self-regulation must be strengthened, not weakened.”
The specific worry
The KIDS Act does have a provision on codes of conduct for age rating that goes beyond the existing framework and is more binding.
GAME’s argument is that new codes could produce theoretically inconsistent outcomes, with the same game rated 12+ in one store and 16+ in another, which would undermine the USK of its function as a single reliable signal to parents.
The association says the Act to build on USK and PEGI including their decision-making structures, rather than create parallel procedures, and wants obligations and age checks calibrated to actual risk rather than applied uniformly.
The interest, and the argument
Game represents developers and publishers, and it is a shareholder in the USK.
It also has a reasonable case, and the strongest part is one the press release underplays.
Current ratings are assigned through a procedure involving the Permanent Representative of the Supreme Youth Protection Authorities of the German Federal States, under the Children and Young Persons Protection Act. German retailers are obliged to enforce them. Games without a USK rating can only be sold to adults.
Replacing or overlaying that with an EU code of conduct is a different proposition from overriding a voluntary industry badge.
Both systems have also moved recently on exactly the concerns the KIDS Act raises. The USK was overhauled in 2023 to weigh loot boxes and online communication. PEGI, used across 40 European countries, was amended this year to automatically rate games containing loot boxes 16+.
Not just Germany
USK managing director Elisabeth Secker has issued her own warning with proposed changes. Video Games Europe supports the Act’s aims while opposing blanket age assurance across every game and player. Italy’s IIDEA made the same case at a Senate committee hearing.
Each body represents the industry being regulated. That doesn’t make the technical objections wrong, and the question of whether a system with statutory backing should be replaced by something less tested is a fair one to put.
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