From today, March 9, 2026, gamers in Australia will have to verify their age to access some video games, following the introduction of new Age-Restricted Material Codes… or at least that’s the idea. Despite the restrictions being in place, not much seems to have changed in the gaming world as of yet. 

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told the Sydney Morning Herald that “any platform that carries 18-plus content or adult content is required to use age assurance,” including app stores, online gaming services, and various other websites and services. The media release for the changes state the following: 

“Users will have to complete some form of age assurance to access online games classified R18+ by the Australian Classification Board. For all other games, no age checks are required.”

So what exactly constitutes an “online game”? That’s a great question, and one the government doesn’t seem all too keen on answering super clearly. We’ve trawled through various documents provided on the eSafety Commissioner’s website, including various schedules and safety codes (essentially the laws defining all of this), overview documents, and FAQs, and all of them have some variation of unclear, vague, and sometimes even conflicting language. 

Per the Schedule 5 – Relevant Electronic Services Online Safety Code, which seems to be the relevant code for today’s rollout, a “gaming service” is defined as “a gaming service with communications functionality,” which is one for which the primary purpose of the service is to allow play online games with other people and allows sharing of link or linked text, images, and videos, such as via an in-game chat. It also covers “gaming service[s] with limited communications functionality,” which still has the primary purpose of allowing people to play online games, but doesn’t let people share links, images, or videos. 

Basically, if you can play online with somebody, or maybe only if the primary purpose is to play online, then it’s a “gaming service” and thus subject to restrictions. 

Both of these, if rated R18+, would be subject to age assurance, and if we go solely by that, it seems like only games rated R18+ with major online multiplayer components would be restricted. There aren’t many of these on the Switch or Switch 2, but there are some — Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut, for example, has an online multiplayer mode and is rated R18+. 

A fact sheet about the Relevant Electronic Services Code that was published alongside the code in September last year, however, says “providers of video games rated R18+ by the National Classification Board must also implement appropriate age assurance measures before providing access to the game,” which would suggest it might apply to any game, not just games with online components. 

It’s also somewhat unclear who is responsible for age verification. Does Nintendo have to implement an age verification method when I want to buy Yakuza 0? Or is Sega expected to update the game to add in a face scan link when launching the game or the online multiplayer mode? It’s all very messy and unclear. 

For now, it seems like not much has changed at all. You can buy Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut on the eShop or the Nintendo Store webshop just fine without needing to upload your passport to a sketchy third-party service. Booting it up and going into the online mode doesn’t require you to put in a credit card details to prove your age. And even GTA Online, which was widely speculated to implement age verification (and falls squarely into the category no matter which definition you use), can be played just fine without even ticking a checkbox. At least, according to our testing — maybe Nintendo, Sega, and Rockstar are all using age inference to figure out we’re all old.