0:00 Normally, the law feels like a farway thing that you and I can't really feel a lot of the time in our real lives. But for gaming, 2025 proves that that is not the case because it's the year where the law and politics came for gaming. US tariffs drove prices up while the EU tried to keep them down. Regulators demanded fairer deals for platform holders. Governments around the world attempted to protect children by making things more inconvenient for adults which absolutely will work. And yes there's the legal side within the industry. lawyers tearing each other apart like with Nintendo and PAL World. But these stories, the ones of today those are the people who lead our nation, showing us that well, you can try to keep the politics out of video games, but video games exist within the world. You know, I'm getting in some real we live in a society But uh
0:46 well, we do. And that society's got laws and sometimes those laws can come for the video games. And that is today's video. Our year started off as one where games got more expensive. And not just because executives needed another yacht. No, the US government's tariff policy threw international trade into a state of disarray. When first proposed, the Consumer Technology Association suggested that consoles could increase by up to 40% in price. And rarely enough when it comes to headlines. I can follow that up by saying, and they pretty much did, actually. I mean, the Switch 2 launched at a price that made eyes water. Xbox, driven by a Microsoft mandate to maintain margins, raised prices twice globally over the year. PlayStation took a different tack. They only raised prices outside of the US.
1:32 Effectively, they subsidized the American market by increasing prices elsewhere. I think almost certainly because they know it's core to their business, especially the premium aspects of their business, that they defend their US market share. But the tariffs and the reaction did have a bit of a chilling effect. I mean, do you want to know why we don't have a RRP for Steam machines yet? Well, part of that is because in February, the Lenovo Legion Go was announced at $499. But by the time it actually released only a few months later, it was $5.99. Companies had to pay more to bring products into the US as tariffs fluctuated, and many simply refused to cut their profit margins any further. And all that happened before we really started to feel the AI data center surge and the chaos it has caused with RAM and
2:19 GPU availability. Good luck if you want a new Nvidia gaming GPU in 2026 because they're slashing production 30 to 40%. But there's another thing tariffs posed a risk to physical games. And that's even the case even if the tariffs barely impacted them because the tariffs are a good justification for the industry to do what it's always wanted to do. You see, since most games intended for the US market are actually printed on discs in Mexico, companies might simply make fewer as margins just got even tighter on a product that was trending downward in sales anyway. So, in effect, it's the global economic system that brings you your games being under pressure and you actually feeling that pressure. And I've said all that before I've even mentioned many people's increasingly limited ability to afford said games. And of
3:06 course, an industry that wants games to go digital because on digital, the big platform holders do have far more control over pricing. They don't have a secondhand game being resold cuz in that case, they don't make any money. So this is all a perfect excuse to go discless both in consoles and the production of disc games. But before I leave the land of freedom, there was even a brief period where the US government literally banned the game though it was in the form of the Tik Tok ban. Basically, it ended up blocking access to Marvel's along with some other games published by its shared owner because, of course, games are international with funding coming from all over the world, and that means that the knock-on effects are felt everywhere. And if you're in the States maybe you'll feel some of that coming
3:52 from the EU. America aren't the only ones with a new source book full of rules to apply to trade and to video games because the EU has been trying to get prices under control. At the very least, they've been trying to do that on premium currencies. That's been a major story this year. Earlier on in the year the European Consumer Organization ruled against Star Stables, the Swedish horseirl game that we've all came to love in this channel. And what they did was take it to task for targeting kids unfairly. And that led to them creating a set of principles for premium currencies. things like rules on displaying prices, proper refund options, an end to FOMO marketing, and many other things. And what was most striking is that they were enforcing all of this under existing EU law. And that was the big thing that would actually make this tangible. And they even claimed they didn't need to wait for the
4:37 Digital Fairness Act in 2026 to make their stuff enforceable. And rather understandably, the EU games industry wasn't thrilled at this development. But their frustration did go beyond potentially losing money, though I think money was probably a large part. By insider accounts, all of this was imposed on them with little to no consultation or thought for the actual implementation. And apparently, they made a mistake in not even talking to other EU bodies properly. Something that's very messy considering there's going to be new laws covering similar ground next year under the Digital Fairness Act. The argument for all of this rages on, but suffice it to say this issue is on the EU's radar, and maybe those changes will permeate throughout the world. We'll have to wait
5:23 and see. I have to imagine, though, that because a lot of this is handled digitally, it probably won't be like you know, USBC ports on our phones. But the headline, the big headline was the resurgence of the Stop Destroying Games Citizens Initiative. We've been covering it from the start and even we were shocked by the last minute success. I don't say this to be mean but genuinely thanks Pirate Software. Essentially that whole drama exploded to well I actually think have a meaningful impact on the citizens initiative getting through. Of course I think one of the last things he said was to the effect of all right you got what you want enjoy eating it. So I suppose we'll all have to wait and see. But the petition did sail over the
6:08 finish line with more than 1.4 million signatures. And the EU will now consider the demand that businesses operating in the EU must be stopped from remotely disabling video games or rendering them non-functional, leaving them in a quote functional state without publisher involvement. Will that happen? Who knows? There certainly will be complexities. As we can expect, it's all got the industry talking. There are some devs voicing support, yes, but there's others suggesting that the industry really needs to be engaged with before this stuff is dictated, you know, by a bunch of lawmakers and bureaucrats that probably aren't software engineers. Yeah, people should be consulted. And it's that side when we're talking about engineering that I'm the most willing to go with the industry's big cry of can we please be consulted with. Yeah, that
6:55 should happen. But in the premium currency side, given the sorts of things that uh the industry does, like targeting children with FOMO, well, I feel less sympathetic. So, you may be wondering with all this noise, what's actually going on? Where are we now? Is this just a bunch of bureaucratic guff? Well, the signatures are still being verified, but there is now little doubt that they will pass. Concrete action is still a ways off, though. BU will not receive all the signatures until at worst 9 months after the petition passed and that means April 2026. So over the summer of next year, we're going to start seeing public hearings and input from the impacted bodies and consumers. And then next autumn, that's when we expect we'll get a formal response. Now
7:41 I don't want to sell false hope here. There is no guarantee of change, but as with the rest of the EU's legislative efforts on the DFA, there does seem to be real interest in treating consumers fairly. At least that's what a lot of people think. That's certainly what they're saying. Obviously, I know there is a often more American focused perspective of no, you guys are killing growth. And certainly when it comes to the likes of AI growth, people may point at mist and have a bit of a laugh because Europe is not a serious player in many tech regards. There are many perspectives to all of this. But for the next part, we've got to leave the EU while still staying in Europe. The UK didn't give nearly as concrete an answer whenever they debated their own version of this. Despite MPs like actually
8:27 taking the opportunity to talk about them being gamers, we had MPs talking about Concord, Lawb Breakakers, the Grand Pooh trilogy levels of Kaiso Mario World, and I believe some of the Paradox Grand Strategy games. Let's get ourselves a Hearts of Iron player in the Ministry of Defense. The government did however commit to getting the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, yes, that's a lot of words, to improve consumer standards around online games. It's not a big win. It is a win though, even if it's small. Sometimes that's what people need to get the ball rolling. But other times, well, we've actually got wins without even needing legislators to get involved. Because it turns out that sometimes you need to enforce laws, not implement new ones. Across the world antirust movements have been targeting
9:13 games. We've seen this with Valve. We've seen it with Sony. And the Sony one is fascinating and really under reportported. The PlayStation tax is what they're calling it. and it is being challenged in civil suits in the US and the Netherlands with consumer bodies in the UK and Poland investigating Sony as well. And the claim basically is that PlayStation's decision to restrict official digital product sales only to their platform costs audiences competition. I mean it kind of does overtly mean less competition, right? Like that does make sense. We don't have a conclusion yet, but those processes are underway and we expect to hear the findings in 2026 and beyond. But what we don't have to wait for is Apple and Google taking some big big losses because earlier this year the EU crowbarred open their platforms for
9:58 third party apps. Tim Sweeney couldn't be happier and the US even followed shortly after. And here's the thing with that. Even after Google got bodied Apple mostly won their original hearing but then the judge in a follow-up actually found that they had completely taken the piss when it came to complying with their very limited concessions. And what I'm talking about here is contempt of court filings. That's actually serious. It's statements that Apple leadership quote outright lied under oath. If you do that, you're kind of seen to be a naughty boy. And one of those naughty boys may in fact be Tim Cook. And that's because of claims that in deciding to not comply with legal injunctions that Tim Cook has quote chose poorly. So that made Apple look bad and it may sting a few people. But
10:45 if we're talking about looking bad in 2025, come on. There is one story overriding all the others because it's gaming companies across the globe reeling from age verification laws and the fines involved which I need to remind you can even go up into the billions. How old are you? Let me know and then send me your passport in the mail so that I know you're not lying. That's the kind of thing that's been going, on, or, at least, that's, how, it's kind of felt. And that question is one that's defined this year. What was first hinted at with experiments and discord just them getting ahead of Australian and UK legislation, even as new laws did spread across a dozen US states and the EU, is now kind of impacting everyone. It's impacting our console profiles, our Steam store access, modding sites, and
11:32 so much more. And even before these laws, namely the UK's online safety act came into effect, we actually saw browser games like the Urban Dead simply look at the problem, look at the fines and then decide to give up and just shut down because they could not afford the legal fees to even find out whether they were compliant and they couldn't risk the potential 25 million cost of a fine. That's certainly one way of getting around the problem. And allegedly another way has been some companies essentially choosing, allegedly anyway not to implement in-game chat features until well after launch. Basically, so they could avoid the biggest risks going on right now. And of course, much of this stuff simply doesn't work. You see depending on the service, kids immediately found out ways to get around the verification using pictures of
12:18 adults or even uh characters from video games. But the success rate was never the point here. And I know that may seem like a bit of a shock. No, it's about these companies being seen to take action. Because whenever controversy strikes, as it has for a game like Roblox, what these laws are are a legal stick that the government now has in its arsenal to absolutely clobber the out of companies with. But as we also found out, governments have many sticks to choose from and don't always need to make a new one to hit a company with. Indeed, if the US Congress hadn't been shut down, then the CEOs of Discord and Steam would have been called to testify on how they were protecting kids from extremism, and this would have been going on in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Of course, that's because the suspect was active on those
13:06 platforms, which is hardly a surprise given the demography. But still, those compan shut down and it didn't happen. But maybe it will happen again. And whenever it does, who knows what change it will lead to. But regardless, there's a principle that's drove everyone's actions. And the exowner of Nexus Mods is actually the one who put it best. quote, "The law is the law and Nexus mods will and must follow the law." This was a top-down imposition by governments with the power to inflict material damage. It didn't matter that the original intent was to protect kids from the biggest and most predatory aspects of social media. Gaming was basically caught in the crossfire and simply had
13:51 to react to the blows as they came. It essentially is an industry disrupted. So, where are we then? Are are video games suddenly going to be illegal? Who knows? But here's how I'll sum it all up. This was a year where the industry got blindsided. There were costs incurred from tariffs. There was the outrage from audiences around stop killing games and the EU's challenge on monetization. There is the total impact of the age verification laws across all the different countries and territories. In almost every case, the industry has no levers to protect itself. Trade bodies have done what they can, but are frequently seen by audiences as only seeing the biggest companies for a good reason. That's kind of how they've acted. I think we all remember, well it's a story that'll never really leave my mind. It's uh the ESA's efforts against the preservation of video games.
14:38 So, whenever they act like that, well it's hardly a surprise that people don't feel great about them and aren't willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But unfortunately, it's often smaller scale developers who seem like they just have to do it all by themselves. Because when new laws come or existing ones get new frameworks for their enforcement the big companies are the ones with the resources to afford compliance. It's often the small companies that will struggle to be compliant. And it's always possible that a well-meaning law can have unintended consequences. And as much as there's many things I think many of us do support that have been mentioned throughout this video, for many developers, they are of course also seeing a lot of legal flux around the industry that pays their bills. Let me know what you think. What's this impact
15:24 been in your company? And if you want to listen to something interesting next well, boy, have I got a good one. Have a look up here.
