In 2025 we will enter a new era of safety through the design of our digital playgrounds.
Online games are spaces where billions of people around the world gather to play, socialize and relax. However, they are also environments where harassment, hate speech, and grooming for violence and sexual exploration frequently occur. Today, most online game players report being directly targeted or witnessing one or more of these actions. A 2024 report found 82 percent of gamers claim to have been a direct victim and 88 percent claim to have witnessed some form of so-called “toxic” behavior. Sexual harassment and hate speech are quite common, and more than 70 percent of gamers say they have witnessed these behaviors while playing.
In the most extreme cases, players face violations of their privacy and right to life, for example when their private personal information is maliciously shared online for the purposes of bullying, known as doxxing. In early 2024, for example, an organized hate campaign began against small narrative design studio Sweet Baby Inc. It is believed to be driving a “woke agenda” in gaming with its consultancy, and its employees received numerous threats of rape and death.
There are several reasons why games have become associated with hate and discrimination. However, the most important factor is the lack of innovation across the industry. For example, video games are often marginalized in regulatory conversations about online security. Property data is propertyand (understandably) no company wants to be the first to speak publicly about online security challenges and harms. Games are also, at the end of the day, businesses. Talking about one’s own shortcomings is probably not something that will get shareholder support.
However, in 2025, we will finally start to see industry-wide efforts that prioritize security. Some of these changes will be due to government mandates. While video games have long been excluded from regulatory conversations, they are indebted to some of the new initiatives that have recently been enacted. For example, the Digital Services Law in the European Union requires gaming companies operating there to submit public transparency reports on online harms within their spaces and the effectiveness of their tools to combat them. For the first time, this will enable industry-wide insights into strategies and their effectiveness across the gaming ecosystem.
In 2025, we will also begin to see the effects of the gaming industry’s attempts at self-regulation. In recent years, there have been many trust and safety initiatives spearheaded by the gaming industry itself from an industry-wide ecosystem approach. For example, in 2024 we saw the launch of Digital Prosperity Playbook from the Thriving in Games Group, which provides educational material and step-by-step guides for game developers on how to create more resilient communities and approaches to trust and safety issues in games. It also includes guides on content moderation and community management approaches, as well as teamwork by design, trust by design, and building prosocial behavior in gaming communities.
Last year also saw another breakthrough, with the partnership between Epic Games and the International Age Rating Coalition create internationally recognized ratings for all user-generated content created for fortnite. Historically, player-created content has not been rated, leaving users to essentially make their best guess about age appropriateness from the name, image, and description of the experience. Integrating a user-generated content rating system will allow players (and parents) to make more informed decisions about what and how they will play. In 2025, other game creators will do the same to support players’ ability to make informed decisions about which (of the billions of) user-generated content is safe and appropriate for them.
To be clear, a safe community does not mean there are no risks. Hate, harassment, and other forms of social harm will always exist in one form or another online. But in 2025, the video game industry will finally have more coherent security strategies to better protect players from social harm. As the largest media sector in the world, the video game industry has long needed this innovation and prioritization of player safety and well-being. The way I see it, 2025 promises to be a transformative year that will set a new standard for security in our digital gaming spaces.