Making a successful video game is already difficult. Doing this while complying with the growing number of child safety laws and regulations around the world is an almost insurmountable challenge. A new technology company called k-ID is making this process easier for game makers by providing a framework that protects publishers and developers from the pitfalls of non-compliance, such as regulatory sanctions, reputational risk, and other consequences. We aim to make it much easier.
K-ID, co-founded by CEO Kieran Donovan, is a lawyer by trade who provides global compliance advice to tech and gaming companies, and is a leading company in the global gaming industry. It is an attempt to change his understanding of laws and regulations. Turn your social platform into a product. His experience guiding companies through regulatory frameworks and other cultural considerations that they may not be aware of forms the basis of k-ID's new solutions.
“You get asked the same questions over and over again… and then a light bulb goes on and you say, 'Wait a minute, someone actually needs to solve some of the challenges for kids and teens. 'There's an opportunity to create something for the parent space,' Donovan told TechCrunch.
k-ID's solution was built over the past 18 months with the help of co-founders whose backgrounds include privacy law, online trust and safety, and technology and gaming experience. In addition to Donovan, k-ID's management team includes his chief safety officer, Jeff Wu; He is a trust and safety veteran who previously worked at Google and Meta. Chief Growth Officer Julian Corbett has held executive positions at In-Fusio, Take-Two Interactive, Voodoo, and Tencent. CEO Luc Delaney was previously CEO of the International Social Gaming Association (ISGA) and chair of the Mobile Game Intelligence Forum (MGIF). CTO Aakash Mandhar, previously worked at Microsoft, EA, Immutuable, etc. And soon-to-be chief legal officer Timothy Ma was previously Tencent's head of global privacy and data protection officer.
Image credit: k-ID
One of the challenges facing game developers is that age verification often involves only a simple pop-up where the user enters their date of birth to indicate that they are 13 years or older, making it difficult for children to We don't necessarily know if people are even using the platform. date. Historically, game developers may have had to verify a child's age or request ID to prove that the player was not a child. If unsuccessful, you may need to delete your account. However, k-ID allows you to customize your gaming experience to be legally appropriate for players of that age in that specific market.
“These systems are not designed to really identify and manage younger and more vulnerable users who may be using these platforms,” Donovan points out. “So, for me, I think there's an opportunity to take all the things that we've been working on from a regulatory compliance perspective and deploy them in a way that solves real-world problems.”
Image credit: k-ID
To use k-ID, developers can access the solution via the API or, for mobile, via the SDK.
The service first identifies what a child is according to the law in each market where the game is available. In the United States, the platform may have an age restriction for her 13 years or older, but other markets may have higher age restrictions. Knowing this answer can help game developers better customize the experience for kids, teens, and adults. Then there is the question, given the age of the child, how should parents be involved and should they agree? What kind of information do they need to know? When developers release new features, such as chat, loot boxes, leaderboards, public profiles, etc. You also need to know if it is allowed for young people.
“There are different sensitivities and different compliance requirements for everyone in every country… There's this endless decision tree. That's what we solve for publishers,” Donovan said. say.
The API-based model eliminates the need for k-ID to access the game code itself. Being able to send signals to the game allows it to configure itself according to the age, location, and even digital maturity of a particular child. For example, in the latter case, if parents approve that their children or teenagers can play more mature games, they can consent to this through an interface powered by k-ID .
k-ID's solution entered early access in November 2023 with a small number of game publishers on the platform in markets including the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and China. It has been released today and is available for anyone to use. Its core services include APIs and SDKs to customize your gaming experience. Publishers can also pay to access his k-ID database, which focuses on gaming industry compliance, and pay for a “Family Portal” feature that hosts experiences for parents. Masu. Pricing starts at free and scales up depending on the number of active players per game title.
The remote distributed team has received a total of $5.4 million in backing from both pre-seed and seed funding rounds last year. Investors include a16z Games Speedrun, Konvoy Ventures, and TIRTA Ventures.