Customisation comes with a high price: Sexualised avatars in online gaming are a real threat to children
10 March 2025, 13:29 | Updated: 10 March 2025, 13:31
While often overlooked, video games can be a potent source of danger in children's digital lives.
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Awareness is growing of the threats that social media poses to children’s safety. Harmful content, sextortion, dangerous algorithms…the list goes on. But there’s another, often-overlooked space in our children’s digital lives.
Online gaming has risen sharply in popularity. According to Ofcom, three quarters of children aged 8-17 now play games online. The most popular online game for under-13s is Roblox, played by almost two-thirds of British children aged 8-12. Minecraft and Fortnite are also firm favourites.
Gaming is one way to satisfy our basic human need for connection, growth, escape, and challenge. But just like in the physical world, these needs can be exploited for money, attention, or harm.
Among adults, the perception of gaming as a relatively innocent activity has contributed to a collective ignorance of the face of gaming today. Digital gaming has evolved from friends playing side-by-side on a single store-bought copy, to billion-dollar free-to-play platforms with endless access to strangers.
Environments now exist where children are manipulated by adults, roleplaying sexual fantasies in the guise of a game, using familiar, cartoon-like characters. Where children can freely customise their body shape or clothing into hyper-sexualised avatars or ‘skins’, and where gendered, misogynistic abuse is rife.
Compared to social media, online gaming offers immersive, dynamic ways of expressing identity and socialising – often in a very real and personal sense. Pursuing a quest or co-creating block artwork has brought billions of people together across the world. But are the right controls in place to prevent harm and cope with these new environments?
Regulators are increasingly grappling with the complexities this poses. Australia recently decided not to include gaming platforms in its social media ban for under-16s. In the UK, the Online Safety Act primarily regulates ‘content’, such as abusive written posts or imagery, but applies less clearly to the myriads of verbal and interactive communication across game-types.
The internet is a playground – but the safety rules are still being written. With the digital threat landscape evolving so rapidly, it’s not currently enough to rely on regulation alone. Rather, we need additional lines of defence across law enforcement, tech companies, and parents to keep children safe.
Parents can empower children to enjoy the benefits and freedoms gaming offers – provided they understand how to employ suitable safeguards. For example, understanding who your child is playing with online, reviewing privacy settings, and being aware of signs of grooming. Digital connections can, and do, morph into real-world contact and subsequent harm.
And for big tech, it is essential that game designers prioritise a ‘safety by design’ approach, embedding child wellbeing and safety as core design principles from the outset. Without this, we are potentially putting children at risk and undermining the very essence of what gaming is – play.
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Marcus Wright is a children’s online safety expert at PA Consulting.
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