🚨 Under 16 Social Media Ban: What It Means for Gaming

Hello. Hello. So, uh emergency episode. Of course, we saw it uh from Twof Gamers before. Uh and we would like to talk about the social media ban. Uh there are have been so many countries after Australia and it definitely makes sense. So, I decided to find the parent very quickly. So, John uh is a parent and wanted to uh share why it matters for gaming. And when we say gaming, it doesn't mean just game studios. We have publishers, ad networks, agencies, many platforms from like play stores, app stores, even uh web ones too. So like I would like to better understand where we are standing right now. What is the big picture behind this? What is the best case scenario or like worst case scenario? So all these hard questions will be directly targeting John Wright.
Cool. I mean look from my side dude I think it's uh it's a really interesting thing that's happened and this trend

that we're seeing that has started off in you know one country two countries and now is like being applied across you know I think it's like seven or eight different countries now have decided to follow suit you know Denmark also recently made the same decision I think Malaysia also and there's a couple of ways to approach this right and there's there may be a slightly different approach depending on if you ask me as a parent or as a professional in our industry. And what I can say from from being a parent's perspective, um I am very pro this decision. I personally think social media, you know, has a lot of detriment to to young people. Um, I think I'm of an age and of a generation where social media was part of my maybe my late teens, you know, but it was like MySpace and it wasn't as much about sharing information or or sharing the amount of information about you. It was more about how you connect with people you share about music and

then Facebook and stuff came. But even when I think I first got Facebook, I was probably 17, 18, 19, 20 when I got that. Right. I think that, you know, this the way that children are brought up um with with social media can be quite dangerous as well, right? Like we we're seeing a lot of uh a lot of young kids looking at so let's look at Instagram, right? So Instagram, you know, it's a lot of it is quite pretentious. A lot of it is like people sharing these pictures of them themselves making them making um them look like their life is amazing. But we also know a lot of it is not true, right? Like we know a lot of it is is fake. It's airbrushed. It's AI generated now and and kids are looking at this stuff not realizing that and they're thinking that's what I need to do right to be happy to be successful and stuff like that. So I personally believe in if we're looking at it from that

perspective, you know, it's yeah, it's not a good thing for for kids. Um equally, there's all of the other things around safeguarding, you know, uh you know, the 12-year-olds are on Instagram, they're posting stuff, and then you've got people messaging them, and you know, I'm not saying that everyone out there is a pedophile, right? But there's people out there who are trying to abuse uh you know, abuse in some way, right? It could be like by committing fraud like financial stuff. It could be again you know some weirdo who's looking to talk to a child you know uh or it could be a number of other things but whilst the the you know social media is about connecting people and and stuff like that there is the dark side of it right from the the reasons that we just discussed. So I think you know children should be children. They shouldn't grow up too quickly. You know it's about as a parent I think it's about safeguarding them and uh ensuring that they are protected in you know in in every way.

And I think there is generally like social media can be quite a toxic place for a young mind you know so you know from from a parent's perspective like I'm I I wouldn't like my kids to be on social media for for a few reasons. I think once they get older, but it's the same as like having a mobile phone, you know, like in my son's school, there's kids who are like six or seven with iPhones, and I'm like, you're not having an iPhone till you're 12. There's no reason you need an iPhone before. So, so yeah, man. Look, from a personal perspective, I think, you know, yeah, I I just think that this is a good decision. And I think there's been a lot of situations where children, you know, and social media has created very bad uh sort of impacts either on their psychology on or or or on a number of other things. So I'm I'm I'm pro this decision as a parent basically. Um but then and then equally if we look at this from a professional perspective, right? So we we we completely disengaged John

the father and we talked about John the you know the the gaming CEO. Um look you and I were in Vietnam two months ago and I did a presentation and one of the things that I spoke about was you know we're in the age of the attention economy and this isn't a new phrase. This has been going for the last couple of years. Um but we in games are for the first time. We're not just battling other gaming studios. We're battling other forms of entertainment and social media. And you know, it's not just about you versus your direct gaming competitor. It's about, okay, how do you gain attention from people um and in this case, children when they're watching Tik Tok for 2 hours a day or or some or or going on Facebook or Instagram and then obviously Netflix and all of the other stuff as well because this is all pulled. But so from from a professional perspective, I think ultly, you know, Tik Tok and some of these other companies, they are hyper uh hyper

optimized, hyperpersonalized. They they really know how to capture attention, especially on young minds. I think that, you know, they they they fall into that trap of like doom scrolling and everything else. So I think how does it impact us as an industry? Um I would say probably if if children are not able to access social media, the next thing they're going to do is either play more games or watch more content i.e. YouTube and uh t sorry YouTube and um Netflix and and Prime etc. So the knock-on impact is if they can no longer spend two hours a day on Tik Tok or or Instagram, they're going to use that two hours on other things and gaming will take a big percentage of that. So obviously, you know, these are children. We have to remember that. And there's obviously like there's laws in in place to prevent, you know, certain monetization and stuff like that, right? So I'm not saying that this has to be extremely lucrative, but there will be a

knock-on effect and a halo effect positively for gaming studios. That could be increased Dow, that could be increased session, that could be monetization, but that's like second priority for children. So, so yeah, but all in all, I think this is a good decision as a parent and this is a good decision uh for for us in the gaming industry basically. very well said actually like I wasn't thinking directly from increased increased download and play time and it's kind of like similar to what we experienced back then for co time you know like it went uh one by one countries and not global then gaming saw a like huge boo boost in the end so like that's uh kind of what you mean and probably like one of the genres uh would be also kids games or education apps uh probably that can be thing too.
Yeah, dude. Think about it that let's let's let's talk about just education apps, right? Not even games. If if kids are no longer allowed to access social

platforms, right?
And they but they're but so will that have a direct correlation to to education apps or games? For sure, because they're not spending time over here, so they have to do other things. So, so yeah, like you know, may maybe um and I would hope you know parents would do this, but you know, maybe we could support and promote more educational apps or or even gamified education apps, right? I'm not saying that the the education apps need to be super boring. They could be fun as well and I believe they should be for children. Um but yeah, I think all of those kind of things would um yeah, would would would do better without social media. So, so yeah, not only do I feel like kids would be more protected without it, but equally there's probably more learning opportunities and they'll focus their time on on better areas than just again doom scrolling in this example.
And that's a uh business investment

advice by John Wright. [laughter]
Invest into education apps now because yeah, [laughter] I I'm not giving any education sorry any investment advice. That's situation. Don't take that. No. Serious. No, it's a good point, man. It's a good point.
Thank you very much, John.