Legal

Digital Omnibus: Digital Package for Simplification

1 October 20256 pages2,870 words

Summary

The paper argues that the European Union’s expanding digital regulatory landscape is creating overlapping and burdensome compliance requirements for the video‑games sector, threatening its global competitiveness. It calls for a coordinated “Digital Omnibus” that streamlines rules while preserving consumer protection, emphasizing that simplification must translate into tangible reductions in administrative and legal costs for companies. Key recommendations focus on six regulatory areas. First, greater legal certainty is needed for cross‑border data transfers, with clearer guidance on the use of Standard Contractual Clauses and the impact of their termination. Second, the rollout of the Data Act should include a grace period to accommodate long‑development cycles of consoles and to avoid data‑leak risks. Third, modest adjustments to the GDPR are urged to harmonise enforcement across Member States and to curb abusive data‑subject requests. Fourth, the ePrivacy framework should be modernised but retain the ability of game providers to process communications for safety, harassment prevention and cheating detection. Fifth, the Cyber Resilience Act requires precise definitions of “substantial modification” and practical guidance on CE marking for software distributed via app stores, with a shorter security‑update horizon for consoles. Sixth, the AI Act should be applied proportionately, recognising the low‑risk nature of most video‑games. The scope covers the EU digital market in 2025, targeting video‑game developers, publishers and platform operators. The position draws on industry data—Europe’s video‑games market is valued at €26.8 billion, supports 116 000 jobs, and reaches 54 % of Europeans—and on an OECD study estimating that full data localisation would cut global GDP by 4.5 % and reduce exports by 8.5 %. No primary survey is cited; the analysis is based on sector observations and existing economic research. The overall thrust is to achieve regulatory coherence that safeguards users while enabling the European video‑games industry to thrive internationally.

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Digital Omnibus: Digital Package for Simplification

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