Making a video game successful is already difficult. Doing so while complying with the growing number of child safety laws and regulations around the world is an almost insurmountable task. A new technology company is called child aims to make this process much easier for game developers by offering a framework that protects publishers and developers from the pitfalls that come with non-compliance, including regulatory penalties, reputational risk and other consequences.
Co-founded by the CEO Kieran Donovan, a practicing attorney whose work has involved advising technology and gaming companies on global compliance, k-ID is an effort to transform his understanding of the laws and regulations related to scaling a game — or even a social platform — into a product . His experience guiding companies through the regulatory framework and other cultural sensitivities they may not be aware of is the basis for k-ID’s new solution.
“You get asked the same question over and over again…and the light bulb goes on and you think, ‘Wait a minute, there’s an opportunity for somebody to make something for everyone to solve some of these challenges in the child, adolescent and parenting space. Donovan tells TechCrunch.
K-ID’s solution was created over the past 18 months, with the help of co-founders whose backgrounds also include privacy laws, online trust and security, as well as technology and gaming experience. In addition to Donovan, k-ID’s executive team includes the Chief Safety Officer Jeff W, a trust and security veteran who previously worked at Google and Meta. Chief Growth Officer Julian Corbett, who held executive positions at In-Fusio, Take-Two Interactive, Voodoo and Tencent. Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Luc Delany, previously CEO of the International Social Games Association (ISGA) and President of the Mobile Games Intelligence Forum (MGIF). CTO Aakas Mandhar, formerly of Microsoft, EA, Immutable and others. and soon Chief Legal Officer, Timothy Mapreviously Head of International Privacy and Data Protection at Tencent.
Image Credits: child
Part of the challenge game developers face is that they don’t necessarily know if children are using their platform, because age verification often just involves a simple pop-up where users indicate they’re over 13 by entering a date of birth. Historically, game developers may have had to verify the child’s age or request an ID to prove that the player is not a child. If they fail, they may have to remove the account. But with k-ID, they could tailor the game experience to be legally appropriate for a player of that age in that particular market.
“The systems are not designed to identify and then manage the youngest users or the most vulnerable users who may be on these platforms,” notes Donovan. “So for me, I think there’s an opportunity to take everything I’ve been working on from a regulatory compliance perspective and develop it in a way to solve real-world problems.”
To use k-ID, developers can access the solution via an API or, if on mobile, an SDK.
The agency first determines what a child is, by law, in each market where the toys are available. In the US, platforms may be age-restricted to 13 and older, but in other markets, the age may be higher. Simply knowing this answer can help the game developer tailor the experience appropriately for the child, teen, or adult. Then there are questions about how the parent might need to be engaged, given the child’s age — does he need to consent? What kind of information do they need to know? When a developer launches new features, they also need to know if things like chat, loot boxes, leaderboards, and public profiles are allowed for kids or teens in a particular market.
“There are different sensitivities and different compliance requirements for everybody in every country… there’s this infinite decision tree. That’s what we solve for publishers,” says Donovan.
With the API-based model, k-ID does not need access to the game code itself. It can send its signals to the game so that the game can be configured for that particular child’s age, location, and even digital maturity — the latter, for example, if a parent approves of the child or their teen can play a more mature game , they could consent to it through a k-ID interface helps power.
k-ID’s solution entered early access in November 2023 with a handful of platform game publishers in markets such as the US, Europe, Japan, Korea and China. It is now open and available to everyone starting today. Its core offering includes APIs and SDKs for customizing gaming experiences. Publishers can also pay to access k-ID’s database focused on gaming industry compliance, or pay for a “family portal” functionality that hosts the experience for parents. Pricing starts at free and then scales with the number of active players per game title.
The remotely distributed team is backed by a total of $5.4 million from last year’s pre-seed and seed funding round. Investors include; a16z Speedrun GamesKonvoy Ventures and TIRTA Ventures.
