Many people in Toribash community started playing this game as minors, some as young as 10 years old. Due to the age of this game, some have stuck around for years and became adults meanwhile, so I think this is a perfect place to have such discussion.

Today, internet and video games are as accessible as ever. According to NPD, 91 percent of U.S. children ages 2-17 play video games (64 million) and the recent Fortnite craze indefinitelly accelerated this number even further. Many small kids these days can be found playing addictive and competitive games which don't necessarily target youngsters as main audience. And this is where my discussion point comes in, should all games be legally rated before release and should breaching that rating be a legal offense? I am aware that there are some laws in US regarding sales of sexually explicit games to minors, but with today's sales being mostly digital, that is often not enforced or easily avoided.



Pros
Addiction prevention
As of now it has became apparent and proven that gaming can cause an addiction. Most addictive substances or activities that we know of are currently limited under legal age restrictions, such as gambling, sex or alcohol. It has also been proven that children and teens are more prone to addiction than adults. With those facts in mind, it would be logical to limit most games in order to protect children from possibility of early addiction.

Fair gameplay
Many kids can be found playing very competitive games, such as League of Legends, CS:GO, PUBG just to name a few and most of these games require team cooperation in order to succeed. Most kids tend to be incapable of keeping up with competitive gameplay, so more than often they can cost a win to the rest of the team.

If those games were legally limited by certain age rating, competitive gameplay would be more fair and balanced.

Cons
Black market opportunities
With some games becoming illegal to certain age groups, it is certain that a lot of minors will look for alternative ways of obtaining the games. This would definitely open a whole new market for "alleyway sellers" and give opportunity for them to profit from teens.

Punishments
Minors can't be punished by law, so it would have to target sellers or parents. This would put unnecessary stress on both parties, because now parents would be paranoid that their kid is playing games "illegally", and game markets would have to ID buyers, adding extra step to every sale.


So let me know what do you think about it. If this was proposed as a real law, would you be for or against, and why?

Also to make it clear I am not saying that all games should be 18+. Each game would be rated depending on its contents and "addictive" elements to determine which age group it belongs to.