The European Commission released the draft EU KIDS Act on September 17, extending new obligations to online games, AI companions, chat bots, app stores and operating systems alongside the headline restrictions on social networks and video-sharing services used by minors.

KIDS — Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy — is the Commission's proposed vehicle for policing digital services consumed by children. The Commission has scoped the most aggressive provisions, an access ban for under-13s and tighter limits for under-15s, to social networks and video-sharing platforms rather than to games directly. That social-media package has drawn the bulk of political attention since the draft appeared.

Games-specific clauses sit elsewhere in the text and reach a broader set of digital products than the headline age gates suggest. The Commission has confirmed the draft extends to:

• Online games distributed in the EU
• AI companions and chat bots that can interact with minors
• App stores that distribute those games and bots
• Operating systems that host or surface them to users

That scope matters operationally because it pulls studios into a compliance framework originally written for user-generated content at social-network scale. The technical definitions the Commission eventually adopts for "online game," "AI companion" and "chat bot" will determine where the boundary falls — and many live-service titles already blur those lines through in-game chat, NPC dialogue systems, and generative AI features layered on top of multiplayer modes.

What changes for studios?

Legal and policy teams should expect the games-specific clauses to drive the bulk of their compliance work, not the under-13 ban. Distribution pipelines are the first pressure point: app stores and operating systems sitting inside the KIDS scope means storefronts carry their own obligations regardless of whether a developer's title integrates social features.

For studios operating live-service games with chat, voice or generative AI features, the harder question is classification. A title that ships with an NPC chat powered by a large language model may need to satisfy both game-specific and AI-companion-specific obligations under the draft's structure. Smaller studios without dedicated policy staff will feel that classification burden most.

What to watch next

The September 17 text remains a draft. The Commission will route it through the European Parliament and Council, where lawmakers will negotiate the games-specific clauses alongside the more visible social media fight. Studio teams should track the trilogue for:

• Final scope definitions for "online game," "AI companion" and "chat bot"
• Age-verification requirements and whether single-player or non-social titles qualify for exemptions
• Enforcement timelines and the role of national regulators in each member state
• Any amendments that strip games out of the perimeter entirely

The political signal from the Commission matters as much as the legal text. By folding games, AI companions, chat bots, app stores and operating systems into the same draft as social networks, Brussels has framed interactive entertainment as part of the same risk class as platform-scale user-generated content. That framing will shape every downstream negotiation — and the next concrete date to watch is the Commission's publication of the full games-specific analysis that accompanies the proposal.