A boy, perhaps eight years old, stands in the middle of one of our Zombie Shooters. Around him, a horde of undead stumbles through the room, someone screams from the neighboring headset. He cries out, then he weeps. His father stands three meters away, engrossed in his own game, and notices nothing. When our employee intervenes and stops the session, he becomes aggressive. It takes a lot of tact to explain to parents before and after the game why age ratings exist.
What Changed on January 1, 2025
Since the beginning of 2025, the new Federal Act on the Protection of Minors in Film and Video Games (JSFVG) has been in force in Switzerland. The Federal Council put the first stage into effect on January 1, 2025. This means that for the first time, uniform minimum requirements for age labeling and age verification apply throughout Switzerland.
Industry organizations for film and games have until 2027 to develop their own youth protection regulations. If these meet the federal minimum requirements, they will be declared binding for all providers. Until then, the following already applies today: Anyone who makes video games publicly accessible must visibly declare the minimum age and monitor compliance.
The specific, industry-wide binding rules are yet to come, by 2027 at the latest. We are not waiting for them. We are already acting accordingly today.
What We Experience in Our Arenas
Our Zombie Shooter is the biggest stumbling block. Children who are actually too young often panic there. We’ve had cases where a child barely made it to the restroom in time. Fear has a physical effect.
However, violence is not the only issue. Confined spaces and dark worlds in our TrueVR experiences, such as cave passages, trigger fear in some children, even without a single opponent. The realism that we otherwise market as our greatest strength quickly turns into its opposite here.
And then there are the parents who resist when our staff intervenes. “It’s just a game” is the most common phrase. Some get loud. We understand the reflex. But we can no longer simply accept it.
Our Consequence: Clear Age Limits Based on PEGI
The industry is still negotiating. We are already orienting ourselves to the European PEGI system and supplementing it with our own experience from hundreds of family visits.
In TrueVR, violence is taboo for those under 10, which explicitly includes laser tag. We only allow violence with blood against fantasy creatures like zombies from age 12. The reason lies in realism: full-body VR with haptics and 4D effects feels different from a screen game, and that also applies to the effect on a child.
In Genzone VR, TrueVR’s little brother, agility games and laser tag are possible from age 7. An exception is the Zombie Shooter: although we offer it there too, the age limit, as in TrueVR, is 12 years and up.
These limits apply, even if parents disagree. We no longer want children crying in our arenas because they are playing a game they are not ready for.
Youth protection in virtual reality does not begin with a bill from Bern. It begins at our reception, every time we check an age that should have already been checked at home.
More about our age categories and experiences: https://fusionarena.ch under “Games”.
About the Author
Ronny Tobler is co-founder and CEO of Fusion Arena, Switzerland’s largest VR entertainment provider with locations in Basel, Bern, St. Gallen, and Zurich. Previously, he worked at Microsoft for 16 years. His company Pandally is a full-service IT provider for SMEs, and as co-CEO of Refense, he develops virtual reality training solutions for police and military. He has personally accompanied hundreds of virtual reality games and writes here about what he observes.
