Teloril Breaks Down the Online Safety Act and Its Impact

Published in News on March 14th, 2025

The Online Safety Act (OSA) is reshaping the way online services, including video games, operate in the UK. This law introduces extensive compliance requirements for companies that provide digital services to UK users, forcing game developers-big and small-to rethink their approach to user safety, moderation, and data management.

One of the most striking examples of how this law is affecting game development is Brighter Shores. Due to the OSA's strict requirements, Brighter Shores has implemented a highly restrictive chat filter, anonymous leaderboards, opt-in social features, and extensive behind-the-scenes documentation to ensure compliance.

But is this level of caution necessary? And what does the OSA mean for the future of online gaming?

Understanding the Online Safety Act

The Online Safety Act, which became law in late 2023, aims to make online spaces safer, with a particular focus on protecting children. It requires platforms to identify, assess, and mitigate risks associated with user-generated content, ensuring that harmful content-such as harassment, scams, hate speech, or even terrorism-is actively prevented.

For online games, the law mandates:

Risk assessments to evaluate potential dangers.
Evidence-based compliance reports submitted to Ofcom, the UK's regulatory body.
Strict enforcement measures, including potential fines of £18 million or 10% of global revenue for non-compliance.

Compliance isn't optional, nor is it limited to UK-based companies. Any online service with significant UK users falls under its jurisdiction, meaning global platforms must comply or risk being blocked in the UK.

Brighter Shores and the OSA: A Conservative Approach

Given the steep penalties, Brighter Shores has taken a maximalist approach to compliance, implementing layers of moderation and restrictions that go beyond what many games currently enforce. These include:

Opt-in only social features (e.g., chat and leaderboards).
A heavily restrictive chat filter, frustrating many players.
Strict character naming policies, limiting political or pop-culture references.
Meticulous documentation of all features for regulatory review.
No plans for official forums or Discord.

According to Teloril, who conducted extensive research into the OSA and spoke with Brighter Shores developers, Andrew Gower and his team have spent months ensuring full compliance. Every feature is meticulously documented, resulting in a report that could stretch thousands of pages.

This approach, while ensuring legal safety, has led to criticism from players who feel the game's social experience is overly sanitized. Compared to RuneScape, which has a dedicated moderation team and player-driven reporting systems, Brighter Shores relies heavily on automated filtering, making communication within the game frustrating at times.

How Other MMOs Are Handling the OSA

Brighter Shores isn't alone in navigating this legal minefield. Other UK-based or UK-accessible MMOs, including RuneScape, have also had to adapt.

RuneScape (Jagex): While Jagex has not implemented chat restrictions as aggressive as Brighter Shores, it has strengthened moderation and documentation processes. With a 600-person staff and a 2,000-strong volunteer moderation team, Jagex has the manpower to manage compliance differently. The company also made its Jagex Account System mandatory in November 2023, possibly as a proactive measure.
Urban Dead: A small, web-based MMO that had been running for 19 years, Urban Dead shut down entirely due to the OSA's legal burden. The solo developer behind it determined that the cost and effort of compliance were simply not worth it.
Global Companies: Some larger companies have simply refused to comply or threatened to leave the UK. Steam, Blizzard, WhatsApp, and Signal have all voiced concerns, with some services threatening to withdraw rather than implement changes.

The full impact of the OSA remains to be seen, but by March 2025, all affected companies must submit risk assessments to Ofcom, which will set the tone for enforcement going forward.

The Future of Brighter Shores and UK MMOs

For Brighter Shores, the worst of the OSA's administrative burden may be behind us. Developers have confirmed that now that the initial compliance groundwork is complete, the team can refocus on actual game development. However, because the OSA requires annual reassessments and new reports for any major updates, compliance will remain an ongoing challenge.

The larger question remains: Will companies like Jagex, Fen Research, and other UK-based studios find ways to make compliance manageable, or will the cost and complexity of regulation stifle innovation in online gaming?

For now, Brighter Shores remains one of the most extreme examples of a game adjusting to the OSA, setting a precedent that may influence other studios-whether they like it or not.

If you haven't watched Teloril's video yet, scroll to the top and check it out. He goes deep into the Online Safety Act, breaking down its impact on Brighter Shores and online games as a whole. His take is well-researched, insightful, and definitely worth a watch.

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