{"id":209186,"date":"2025-10-13T02:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T02:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/209186\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T02:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T02:49:09","slug":"video-games-could-fall-under-the-social-media-ban-researchers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/209186\/","title":{"rendered":"Video games could fall under the social media ban, researchers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Digital media researchers say online video games could yet be included under the federal government’s social media ban for under-16s.<\/p>\n

The ban currently excludes online services “that have the sole or primary purpose of enabling end-users to play online games with other end-users”.<\/p>\n

But associate professor Brendan Keogh, from the Queensland University of Technology’s Digital Media Research Centre, said the definitions under the ban were “incredibly vague”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Brendan Keogh says online video games like Roblox are important for socialising young people. (Supplied: Queensland University of Technology)<\/p>\n

“I still have questions about how much any minister of the day can change what is or isn’t excluded from those central definitions,” Dr Keogh said.<\/p>\n

“I think there’s concern in the video game industry about just how reliable or permanent that exclusion of [online] games is.”<\/p>\n

Banning games ‘whack-a-mole’<\/p>\n

Last month, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant confirmed she had written to online game platforms<\/a>, including Roblox and Lego Play, advising the ban could apply to their services.<\/p>\n

According to Marcus Carter, professor in human computer interaction at the University of Sydney, Roblox is “rightfully critiqued” for a lack of effective moderation of “fringe, far-right material” uploaded by users.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Marcus Carter says Roblox attracts 360 million players per month, who can upload content to the platform. (Supplied: Roblox Corporation)<\/p>\n

He said although this was a risk factor for young people, any ban would simply push them on to other games.<\/p>\n

“When I ran studies in 2021, everybody was playing Fortnite. Now, the kids are all playing Roblox and in three years, they’ll be playing a different game,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Is the commissioner going to play whack-a-mole with every game that children start playing? Once children are banned from creating an account on one game, they’re just going to move to another game.”<\/p>\n

Including games in ban an ‘overreaction’<\/p>\n

Professor Carter said the risk factors did not justify the social media ban being expanded to include online video games.<\/p>\n

“The risks are overwhelmingly outweighed by the positive social, creative and intellectual benefits of playing games for young people,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Parents should engage with their children and the games they play, but banning children from those spaces would be a ridiculous overreaction.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Marcus Carter says play, digital or otherwise, is a human right for all children. (Supplied: University of Sydney)<\/p>\n

According to a statement released by the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association, video games are regulated by the National Classification Scheme, which provides clear guidelines on age-appropriateness and content.<\/p>\n

Developers building safer games<\/p>\n

Ashley Ringrose, founder of Australian video game developer SMG Studios, said he was not worried about losing business over the ban.<\/p>\n

“Only about 2 per cent of our market is in Australia, so even if we lose 50 per cent of our [Australian] users, it’s 1 per cent of our market,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Ringrose, a father of two, said SMG Studios’ games, some of which allowed young people to interact online, were designed with safety in mind.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ashley Ringrose says SMG Studios restricted online players to 13 years plus when developing Risk: Global Domination. (Supplied: SMG Studios)<\/p>\n

“Children could describe something innocuous, like where they live, their school or their favourite restaurants, that identifies them. We try to restrict that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We purposely don’t have live [text or voice] chat in our games because of the potential for exploitation of people giving basic personal information.”<\/p>\n

Mr Ringrose said SMG Studios had also used “canned chat”, where players send pre-defined messages and restricted online play to players’ digital friends or teenaged players only.<\/p>\n

‘Not the right way to go’<\/p>\n

Professor Carter would like to see more safeguards in online video games, but he said a ban was not the answer.<\/p>\n

“A ban is going to eradicate the opportunity to create ‘safety by design’ features that make children’s online play worlds better,” he said.<\/p>\n

“That’s not the right way to go about building a safer children’s internet.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Digital media researchers say online video games could yet be included under the federal government’s social media ban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[128966,64,63,99,31450,128968,128965,10356,128969,128967,116548,28538,69471,3975],"class_list":["post-209186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-are-games-included-in-the-social-media-ban","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-digital-media","tag-lego-play","tag-online-games","tag-online-safety","tag-queensland-university-of-technology","tag-roblox","tag-smg-studios","tag-social-media-ban","tag-university-of-sydney","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}