Real time mode – Newspaper Kommersant No. 201 (7402) dated 10/28/2022

The government’s fresh idea to restrict the distribution of video games containing prohibited information in Russia immediately aroused concern among market participants. Some fear that they will have to create separate Russian versions of games. Others see the risk of monopolizing the market in the hands of distributors loyal to the state: this could happen if foreign stores refuse to remove, for example, games with gay characters and are blocked. Others, on the contrary, see in the mechanism (which, however, is not yet completely clear) numerous loopholes and blind spots.

One such gray area specific to the gaming market is User Generated Content (UGC). It is present in one form or another in almost all games, regardless of genre. Participants of multiplayer shooters communicate in voice chats, fans of multiplayer online role-playing games (MMO RPG) hold themed events for dozens of participants.

Sandbox games where the user can create literally anything from anything (Minecraft, for example) should evoke the superstitious horror of Russian regulators. You never know the flag of what colors the gamer will hang on the wall of his “home” or what slogan he will write in the “city” where other players gather. In the end, you never know a copy of which administrative building he will build in virtual reality, and then, what the hell is not joking, and blow it up. So, for example, in the Krasnodar Territory at the beginning of the year endured a sentence to teenagers for plans to blow up the buildings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB. They trained including in Minecraft.

The problem with UGC regulation is that there is too much of it: users create gigabytes of text and audiovisual content every minute. No publisher can cope with UGC pre-moderation: it is impossible to predict and prevent an infinite number of possible user actions.

Online game publishers today post-moderate user-generated content by server administrators who enforce site rules. Assuming that the new rules are adopted and take into account the peculiarities of the UCG, administrators will have to ensure that gamers do not violate not only the rules of the site, but also Russian law.

How to do it? Publishers can, of course, hire hundreds of professional lawyers as moderators who perfectly know all the characteristics of “forbidden information” and are ready to stay in the game around the clock. Or demand manuals and explanations from the regulator regarding any disputable situation. It would be less costly for businesses to create a separate regulator to monitor user behavior in game worlds and metaverses, perhaps with the registration of separate accounts for the metapolice. I’m kidding, of course. Almost.