Safeguarding Gaming Spaces

Safeguarding in Gaming Spaces

I had the honour of being part of a small working group exploring the issues around safeguarding In gaming spaces. This was hosted by the University of Leeds and was aimed at identifying the issues that exist within these hobby spaces.

An afternoon of great discussions was both incredibly interesting, but also a little frightening.

Some context first. Roll the Dice was set up by myself, an ex teacher, and Matt, a Methodist Minister, to provide social, emotional and mental health support to children through in-person gaming. Given our roles, from the very start we had safeguarding policies in place, including getting ourselves re-DBS checked (Disclosure and Barring Service: an entity that checks for criminal records in the UK).

As Roll the Dice grew, we started working with adults in addition to our young people. Expansion continued and we now find ourselves with a highstreet HQ (I loathe calling it a shop) in Helston where we run the majority of our sessions, as well as a small retail element.

This growth has necessitated the recruiting of volunteers who can help us run our space and sessions. Every volunteer is DBS checked, taught about our safeguarding procedures and we have yearly Level 2 safeguarding training for all team members and volunteers. We work closely with local schools and are often in contact with SENDCOs or heads of year about issues which may arise in our space.

We knew we were likely going in with a very heavy safeguarding hand, but with our experiences of safeguarding issues, and the fact that the CIC exists as a safe space for everyone, it was important that we had safeguarding secure from the get go.

We seem to be in the minority though.

There is currently no expectation on anyone setting up a gaming space to be DBS checked or to have safeguarding procedures in place. There is no requirement from many of the big trading card game companies for their judges to have DBS checks, nor do they have robust safeguarding policies. Anyone setting up a game store is not required to establish safeguarding policies or have a DBS check.

For some this might seem like a non-issue: many other shops don’t have the requirements for safeguarding, so why should hobby game shops?

Gaming spaces are one of the few areas where intergenerational social interaction can occur: children and young people are able to mix with adults that they do not know and engage them in gaming. Gaming is over-represented with neurodivergent individuals of all ages, as well as being seen as highly inclusive of the LGBTQIA+ community. Whilst this is an amazing space for socialising, tribe-finding and the ability to be yourself, it can also be hard to keep everyone safe.

During the afternoon we discussed how different gaming spaces provided different challenges: D&D in a local library on a Saturday as a youth engagement initiative has very different safeguarding considerations to a 120 player, hyper competitive trading card tournament. These both provide different challenges to running a weekly gaming club in a village hall, or to a gaming shop which has a dedicated play space and runs events or sessions all day, every day. Whilst the safeguarding outcomes and principles remain the same, the actions taken for each space can be wildly different.

For me, the reflection is always going to be on what we provide – a safe, welcoming space for anyone to come and be themselves. We are open 7 days a week and run everything from organised play (official) nights to chilled social gaming and painting sessions during the daytime. We also have a Discord server where members of the community can connect with one another, which provides a whole range of safeguarding issues in itself.

As stated, though, our team are background checked and undergo training to spot and report any issues. Not every gaming space or store has that. There was some discussion about how much it was up to the community to self-regulate itself: bad actors being shunned by the rest of the community means that those behaviours are explicitly abhorred. Is this the way it should be? I am not so sure.

Increased safeguarding expectations on gaming spaces can put off those who want to run them, as they don’t want the extra cost, hassle or time sink that it can incur. I would argue, however, that if they are truly in it for the community, then putting the community’s safety first is of paramount importance. This is especially true in an age where trading card games, i.e. Pokemon, are treated as an investment commodity. We are aware of shops which have previously not been interested in running player sessions now setting them up as it will increase the amount of stock that they receive to sell. They could not care less about the players, but having them there is an inconvenience they are willing to go through in order to make more profit.

I mentioned earlier that we have a Discord server (an online communication software. Like having a massive WhatsApp group with subgroups for different interests). This presents a whole host of other safeguarding questions, namely “How do we police intergenerational socialising?”

I do not mean police in a way which means that these communications cannot happen, but in a way that our younger or more vulnerable community members are kept safe. It can be argued that a minor’s use of social media applications is a family responsibility, but where does our responsibility begin and end as the creators/owners of that channel? Moderators and admins help, but, what would happen if something untoward happened in a private conversation between two of our community members?

 

Safeguarding in gaming spaces is a huge area to discuss, and this post is purely one to start a local discussion.

Should gaming communities be self-regulating, or should there be an expectation on the location/organisers to provide safeguarding policies and procedures for their space, regardless of what it is?

As a parent myself, I would find it shocking if my child went into a space to play games only to discover that there was no background checks conducted on those who work with children or the vulnerable, and that there were no procedures in place should anything happen.


What are your thoughts on this? Are we making something out of nothing, or is it important to create robust safeguarding procedures before any serious incidents happen in gaming spaces?