## Leaked EU Kids Act Draft Would Force ID Checks on Online Games and Restrict Private Servers, Drawing Fire From Indies and Player Communities

What the leaked text proposes

Community threads on Resetera and Reddit point to a leaked European Commission draft the Kids Act, with one thread framing it as a threat to indie games in Europe and another, on r/europeanunion, summarising it as an end to private videogame servers and a mandate for ID verification for all games. A separate thread on a small forum repeats the reading that the draft labels private videogame servers illegal, citing the leaked document directly. A YouTube video from a Stop Killing Games-adjacent creator frames the same draft as the biggest threat the Stop Killing Games movement has ever faced.

Read together, the consistent reading is that the proposal defines "online games" to include video games or video gaming platforms, and applies obligations around identity verification and server operation across the category.

A separate EU action on in-game payments

On the same day, an EU consumer-protection action was reported by Silicon Republic as "EU probes Candy Crush, Minecraft creators over in-game" payments, and by as "EU regulators launch action over game microtransactions" with the same target list. Silicon Republic describes it as an investigation by consumer protection watchdogs into the companies behind popular online games, and describes the same effort as coordinated enforcement on virtual currencies and in-game items in titles including Minecraft. The two outlets agree on the substantive fact that EU consumer-protection authorities are now formally scrutinising microtransaction and in-game item practices across major live-service titles.

The two pieces of evidence together describe the same enforcement action, the same target list and the same legal hook, virtual currencies and in-game items.

How the two threads interact

The two EU actions cover different surfaces. The microtransaction probe reaches into live-service monetisation in major titles, including Minecraft and Candy Crush, with EU consumer-protection authorities coordinating across member states. The leaked Kids Act draft reaches into the underlying definition of an online game, with identity verification and server-operating rules flowing from that definition. Combined, they touch both the business model of live-service games and the technical operation of community servers.

What to watch next

Because all Kids Act items are sourced from a leaked draft and not a final text, the concrete things to track are the publication of an official Commission text, any Commission communication naming a date for that publication, and the next formal step on the consumer-protection enforcement announced on 1 October 2026. Until an official version is published, a leaked draft is the only available document, and that leaked draft is what every community reading above is reacting to.