The European Commission has published a draft of the proposed EU KIDS Act, and while its most controversial provisions — a ban for users under 13 and restrictions for under 15s — apply only to social networks and video sharing platforms, other stipulations in the draft would apply to online games sold across EU territories.

That distinction matters for game businesses. If the act passes in its current form, studios and publishers operating online games in the EU would face significant new restrictions on common online features. The draft's definition of an online game is extremely broad: legal reading of the text suggests it could be held to cover everything from Roblox, a platform-style virtual world, to the multiplayer mode of a disc-based game sold at retail.

For studios, the operative question is not whether a title looks like a social platform. It is whether the game offers an online component at all — and under the draft's wide scope, that threshold is low.

What does the draft change for game makers?

The proposal, published on the Commission's digital strategy portal, is the EU's latest move in its child-protection agenda. Its headline measures target social media and video sharing services. But the draft does not stop there: additional stipulations extend into online games, introducing what the source analysis calls significant restrictions to common online features.

The breadth of the definition creates real compliance exposure. Consider the range of products potentially captured:

• Live-service and free-to-play titles with social features
• Platform-style experiences such as Roblox
• Multiplayer modes bundled with physical, disc-based releases
• Any online game sold in EU territories, regardless of distribution model

That scope means the act, if approved as drafted, would not be a niche regulation for mobile free-to-play studios. It would reach console publishers, PC developers and hybrid physical-digital products alike.

Why the definition's breadth is the key risk

The draft's language around what counts as an online game is described as extremely broad. That breadth is the central operational risk for the industry, because compliance obligations attach to the definition. A publisher deciding whether a product falls in scope cannot rely on category intuition — a disc-based game with an online multiplayer mode appears to be captured alongside natively online services.

For compliance, legal and product teams, that points to a practical workflow: audit every shipped and in-development title with any online component, map which features the restrictions touch, and track the legislative text as it moves through the EU process. Early analysis of the draft, published by GamesIndustry.biz, frames the impact in exactly these terms.

What happens next?

The draft is a proposal, not law. It must pass through the EU legislative process before any obligations take effect, and the text can change along the way — including the scope of the online game definition and the specific restrictions attached to it.

The signal worth watching: whether legislators narrow the definition of online games as the act progresses, or leave it broad enough to pull retail multiplayer products into the same compliance regime as social platforms. That single drafting decision will determine how many studios this law actually reaches.