What Australia's eSafety report says about children and big game platforms

Last checked on 3 October 2026.

On 2 October 2026, Australia's eSafety Commissioner published Playing it safe, a transparency report about major gaming services. Its announcement calls for stronger protections against child sexual exploitation and violent extremist material and activity. It reports differences in safeguards across Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite and Steam.

We agree that children's safety should be part of how a service is built. Parents deserve clear answers about contact, spending and data. Below, we explain what eSafety reported, what the research can show, and how our own website answers those questions.

What the agency examined

eSafety's announcement says providers supplied information under compulsory notices. The reporting period was 1 October 2025 to 31 March 2026. Some providers introduced further safety measures afterwards. Keep that period in mind when reading a headline about what a service does today.

This article reports regulator findings in a transparency report. It does not report a court verdict or a penalty. The agency's report includes providers' accounts of their systems alongside its assessment of gaps. eSafety says it did not verify the providers' submissions, and the report does not determine their compliance with its expectations (pages 27–28).

Findings and reported safeguards

The table summarises a selection of eSafety's October 2026 findings, chiefly from its announcement and executive summary. The full report covers more. Each row describes an agency finding or a provider statement recorded by the agency.

Service	What eSafety reported
Steam and Steam Chat, provided by Valve	Valve was the only provider without hash-matching across its services. Steam Chat's proactive detection was limited to a URL tool mainly blocking scams.
Minecraft, provided by Mojang Studios	Child-account protections relied on self-declared age. Players declaring themselves adults could access third-party servers without proactive Mojang moderation. Mojang said server operators set moderation, while it handled in-game and server reports.
Fortnite, provided by Epic Games	Child-account protections relied on self-declared age. Epic did not share child-exploitation signals through Lantern or similar initiatives. Epic said every user-created Island received review before publication.
Roblox	Stronger age assurance began in Australia in December 2025. Roblox described detection tools and signal sharing through Lantern. eSafety identified gaps in detection coverage.

Hash-matching compares material with digital fingerprints of already known harmful content. That describes a detection method. It is not a guarantee that all harmful material is found.

The report also records later changes (page 88). Steam introduced credit-card verification for Australian access to R18+ games on 9 September 2026. Roblox changed age-based accounts and parental controls in April. Epic reported new restrictions during investigations and plans for automated voice reporting. These updates deserve attention alongside the earlier findings.

The agency asks providers to build safety into their services, use effective age assurance, share information about emerging threats and detect unlawful content before children meet it. We support that direction. It places responsibility on service design, while giving parents specific features to examine.

Research explains why the questions matter

eSafety's separate gaming research describes a mixed-methods study conducted in August and September 2023. It examined 1,799 Australian online gamers aged 8 to 17. Three findings give useful context:

• Most surveyed gamers reported positive experiences. Many felt gaming supported learning, social connections or emotional wellbeing.
• Four in ten reported negative gaming experiences. Three in ten teen gamers had encountered potentially harmful ideas.
• Only a small proportion of gamers with negative experiences reported them to the platform or moderators.

These are reported experiences and perceptions. They do not establish that games caused a developmental benefit or a particular harm. They also do not give a separate risk estimate for each platform in the transparency report.

Another eSafety study, Digital lives of Aussie teens, surveyed 627 teenagers aged 12 to 17 in September 2020. Thirty percent reported contact from a stranger or someone unknown in the previous six months. This concerned online experiences across services. It is older evidence and is not a current gaming-only rate.

Together, these findings support asking about contact and reporting while listening to what children enjoy. They do not justify treating every game session as harmful.

What a parent can check

eSafety's parent guide recommends learning contact and reporting controls before play. Here is a short practical checklist:

• Find the settings for text, voice and connection requests.
• Practise locating mute, block and report controls together.
• Ask where your child would seek help after uncomfortable contact.
• Read the privacy information and review any spending features.

If a child tells you about something upsetting, eSafety advises staying calm, listening without judgement and reassuring them that experiencing abuse is never their fault. Use our game-site checklist for a more detailed review of features and policies.

How freegama differs, and its limits

Our For parents page describes a website without player chat, messages, ads or purchases inside games. Players cannot post content for others to browse. No account is needed. The daily quest ends after four games, and further practice is optional. Those are our current features. No agency has endorsed them.

Profiles and full saved progress stay in this browser. Kids profiles do not request email or phone details. Ages are self-declared, so we do not verify them. Google Firebase Analytics is enabled unless you turn it off, including for Kids profiles. It measures page and game use, with age bands, levels and scores. Advertising features are off. Our host may process technical request data separately.

The Privacy page lists further analytics fields and has the opt-out control. The choice applies in that browser. Turning collection off does not delete information already received by Google. Our local storage also does not provide automatic cross-device recovery.

We still show streaks and a next-set countdown. Some games have accessibility limits. We do not claim universal safety, legal compliance or benefits outside the practised tasks. Read For parents and review the Privacy settings before deciding whether freegama fits your child. You can also try a game first.