k-ID sample screen
Image Credits:k-ID
Gaming

k-ID launches a solution that helps game developers comply with ever-changing child safety regulations

Making a video game successful is already hard. 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 called k-ID aims to make this process much easier for game makers by offering a framework that protects publishers and developers against the pitfalls that come with non-compliance, including regulatory sanctions, reputational risk and other consequences.

Co-founded by CEO Kieran Donovan, an attorney by trade, whose work involved advising tech and gaming companies on global compliance, k-ID is an attempt to turn his understanding of the law and regulations as it related to scaling a game — or even a social platform — into a product. His experience in guiding companies through the regulatory framework and other cultural sensitivities they may not be aware of forms the basis for k-ID’s new solution.

“You get asked the same question time over and time over…and the light bulb goes on and you think, ‘Wait a minute, there’s an opportunity for someone to actually build something for everyone to solve some of these challenges in the kids, teens and parents space,” Donovan tells TechCrunch.

k-ID’s solution was built over the past 18 months, with help from co-founders whose backgrounds also include privacy law, online trust and safety, as well as tech and gaming experience. In addition to Donovan, k-ID’s executive team includes Chief Safety Officer Jeff Wu, a trust and safety 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 chair of the Mobile Games Intelligence Forum (MGIF); CTO Aakash Mandhar, previously of Microsoft, EA, Immutuable and others; and soon-to-be Chief Legal Officer Timothy Ma, previously head of international privacy and data protection officer at Tencent.

Image Credits: k-ID

Part of the challenge facing game developers is that they don’t necessarily even know if kids are using their platform because age verification often includes only a simple pop-up where users indicate that they’re over the age of 13 by typing in a birth date. Historically, game developers may have had to verify the child’s age or request ID to prove the player is not a kid. If they fail, they may have to remove the account. But with k-ID, they could instead customize the game experience to be legally appropriate for a player of that age in that particular market.

“The systems aren’t designed to really identify and then manage the younger users or the more vulnerable users that might be on these platforms,” notes Donovan. “So for me, I think there’s an opportunity to take everything that I was working on from a regulatory compliance perspective and deploy it in a way to solve real-world problems.”

Image Credits: k-ID

To use k-ID, developers can access the solution via APIs or, if on mobile, an SDK.

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The service first identifies what a child is, by law, in each market where the games are available. In the U.S., platforms may be age-gated for 13 and up, but in other markets, the age may be higher. Simply knowing this answer can help the game developer customize the experience for the child, teen or adult appropriately. Then there are questions about how the parent may need to be engaged, given the child’s age — do they need to consent? What sort of information do they need to know? When the developer is launching new features, it also has to know if things like chat, loot boxes, leaderboards and public profiles are allowed for kids or teens in a specific market.

“There are different sensitivities and different compliance requirements for everyone in every country…there is this infinite decision tree. That’s what we solve for the publishers,” says Donovan.

With its API-based model, k-ID doesn’t need access to the game code itself. It can send its signals to the game, so the game can configure itself for the age, location and even digital maturity of the particular child — the latter, for instance, if a parent approves their child or teen can play a more mature game, they could consent to this through an interface k-ID helps to power.

k-ID’s solution entered into early access in November 2023 with a handful of game publishers across platforms in markets including the U.S., Europe, Japan, Korea and China. It’s now open and available to everyone as of today. Its core offering includes APIs and SDKs to customize game 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. The pricing begins at free and then scales up with the number of active players per gaming title.

The remotely distributed team is backed by a total of $5.4 million from both pre-seed and seed funding rounds last year. Investors include a16z Games Speedrun, Konvoy Ventures and TIRTA Ventures.

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Gaming

Itch.io is the latest marketplace to crack down on adult games

Indie video game marketplace Itch.io announced this week that it has “deindexed” adult and not-safe-for-work games, removing them from its browse and search pages.

The move, the company said, was in response to a campaign by Collective Shout (an advocacy group that has previously criticized video games, rap music, and lingerie commercials) targeting both Itch.io and Steam for selling “No Mercy,” a game that depicts rape and incest.

In an open letter addressed to executives at PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, and other payment processors, Collective Shout said that games “endorsing men’s sexualised abuse and torture of women and girls fly in the face of efforts to address violence against women.”

“We do not see how facilitating payment transactions and deriving financial benefit from these violent and unethical games, is consistent with your corporate values and mission statements,” the organization added.

The campaign appears to have worked, with Steam saying earlier this month that it would ban games that “may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers.”

Similarly, Itch.io said, “To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance.”

It also said that “No Mercy” had been “temporarily available on itch.io before being banned back in April,” and that “the situation developed rapidly,” forcing the company to “act urgently to protect the platform’s core payment infrastructure,” without providing advanced notice to creators.

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The company said it’s now conducting a “comprehensive audit” to ensure that games available on the marketplace meet “the requirements of our payment processors,” with adult content remaining deindexed until the audit is complete. After the audit, Itch.io said NSFW game creators will be required to confirm that their content is allowed under the policies of their payment processors linked to their account.

On social media, users criticizing Itch.io’s decision noted that its current terms declare that adult content violations are “permanent with no chance of appeal” and that any funds in an offending account “will not be eligible for payout” — or as one developer put it, “If you violate the rules, we take all your money. Not just the money from that work, ALL your money from EVERYTHING you’ve ever made.”

This is far from the first time that payment companies appear to have pressured online platforms over adult content — for example, last year Gumroad pointed to restrictions from payment processors when it implemented stricter rules around NSFW art, and OnlyFans also blamed “banking partners and payment providers” when it banned explicit content (a decision that it subsequently reversed).

A Change.org petition with more than 137,000 verified signatures criticizes Mastercard and Visa for their role in these types of decisions. Among other things, the petition demands that the payment companies “stop censoring legal fictional content that complies with the law and platform standards” and “reject influence from activist groups that promote moral panic or misrepresent fiction as harm.”

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Apps

Spotify takes a swing at gaming with a mini golf game ahead of ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ release

Netflix and Spotify have teamed up to launch a golf-inspired game as a way to promote “Happy Gilmore 2,” the sequel to Adam Sandler’s 1996 comedy film, which premieres on Netflix this Friday, July 25.

This partnership represents a new venture for Spotify, as the music platform has never teamed up with another company to create a gaming experience within its app before.

Gaming is an area Spotify has largely overlooked, so working with the streaming giant is notable, even if only for a promotional campaign, as it could serve as a test to see if consumers resonated with the experience. Since the game is tied to a beloved cult classic, it also presents a unique opportunity to boost engagement.

Spotify says it developed the game in partnership with MiK Studio.

Image Credits:Spotify

The new mini-game, titled Happy Gilmore 2 Tournament, is available exclusively within the Spotify app. To play, users must perfect their golf swing by tapping on their device as they aim to complete all three holes.

The game also offers a unique audiovisual experience, featuring audio clips from the movie when users complete each round, along with a personalized playlist of “happy” tracks curated specifically for the user. Players can also discover Easter eggs, such as Happy’s boots, his signature hockey stick, and an alligator.

At the end of the experience, users can watch the official “Happy Gilmore 2” trailer and share their personalized playlist and final score on social media.

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While this is the first time Spotify has worked with another company to develop a gaming experience, it’s worth noting that Spotify previously launched a hidden game on its platform as more of an Easter egg. That game, released in 2023, was called Eat This Playlist and was a variation of the classic Snake arcade game where players control a growing snake and avoid obstacles.

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