Epic Games has officially announced that they will be rolling out “Cabined Accounts” built for younger players, so that parents can establish safer boundaries. Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys will be affected today.
In a lengthy blog, Epic Games cites their goals for the metaverse as need for a “safe and inclusive” experience. Worldwide, players under 13 or the age of digital consent must provide their parents’ email, and parents will need to verify they’re an adult to handle privacy and more.
Ideally the parents will be aware of this shift, or it would be all too easy to avoid in the first place. But this can definitely be beneficial for younger players, since online freedom has blown well out of proportion over the last couple of generations.
Parents deserve the ability to help their kids avoid the kind of overwhelmingly unfiltered language that you can find online every day, if not every match, in competitive game chat. It’s important to consider how threats, racial insults and more could escalate in the metaverse.
Fortunately, Epic Games was smart enough to acknowledge other approaches that haven’t really worked and “encourage false reporting of age”, which is simple enough on any restricted platform.
But players will still have access to most game content while waiting for their parents to handle a Cabined Account, except for obvious features like chat and purchasing. And after the parents’ consent, players won’t have a Cabined Account anymore, so at least it’s a one-time process.
It remains to be seen if this will have any real effects, but the selected titles make sense, since the gameplay itself is family friendly and tends to invite much younger gamers.
You can read more about Fortnite, Rocket League, Fall Guys, and other Epic Games updates by checking out the rest of our news section!
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