At the beginning of the year, a bill was developed in Turkey, establishing a number of requirements for gaming platforms like Steam and Epic Games Store. After thorough consideration, the country's parliament decided to approve it — but with some minor concessions.
Here are the requirements outlined in the newly adopted law:
- Gaming platforms must indicate the age rating of the games they distribute in Turkey. If, for some reason, certain games do not have a rating, they can automatically be labeled as 18+;
- Gaming platforms must have "clear, convenient, and easy-to-use" parental control tools;
- Foreign gaming platforms, used daily by more than 100,000 Turkish residents, are required to appoint a local representative. This can be a special firm or an individual — opening an official office in Turkey is not necessary. Information about the representative must be submitted to the Turkish regulator and also placed "in an easily accessible manner" on the platform itself.
If the platforms do not comply with the rules, they will first receive a warning and be given a month to correct the violations. After a month, they will face a fine of up to 10 million Turkish lira ($222,600), and another month later, the fine will increase to 30 million Turkish lira ($667,800). For those who do not correct issues even after fines — their access speed will be limited by 30-50%.
As the Turkish gaming association TOGED claims, the initial requirements were supposed to be stricter, but the authorities were persuaded to forgo some particularly controversial points. For example, the first version of the bill stipulated that games without an age rating assigned by publishers would be prohibited from being sold in Turkey. Additionally, the regulator initially wanted the authority to completely block gaming platforms within the country, but ultimately reconsidered.
Although the law has been adopted, it has not yet come into effect. It is expected to happen soon — after which Steam and other platforms will have six months to comply with the new Turkish regulations.