Turkey’s game industry trade body TOGED reveals that after a four-hour parliamentary session, a stricter second gaming law is already on the table, even though the first one does not take effect until November 2026.
Turkey’s game industry association TOGED has warned that lawmakers are already pushing for a second, harsher gaming regulation before the country’s first-ever gaming law even takes effect. Following a four-hour meeting with a parliamentary investigation commission on July 1, 2026, TOGED disclosed that efforts toward stricter rules are clearly underway. Turkey’s gaming industry surpassed $1 billion in total revenue in 2025, with over 40 million active players, making the stakes enormous.
What Triggered the New Push?
The Turkish Grand National Assembly established a 22-member investigation commission after school shootings in the cities of Sanliurfa and Kahramanmaras. While the commission’s primary mandate covers school safety, its scope extends to investigating “all risks and negative effects children face in digital environments.” That broad framing has brought video games directly into the crosshairs.
The commission began its work in June 2026 with a three-month mandate and has been meeting with government officials, academics, and industry representatives. On July 1, it invited TOGED for a detailed session on how the gaming industry operates.
What Did TOGED Present to Lawmakers?
TOGED’s advisory board chair Tugbek Olek delivered a presentation lasting over an hour, supported by association president Ali Erkin, academy board chair Kutay Tinc, and advisory member Nurullah Kars. Bahcesehir University professor Yavuz Samur and the Turkish Informatics Association (TBD) also participated.
The association shared international scientific research showing no meaningful link between video games and real-world violence. They also covered how age-rating systems like PEGI work, the technical reality of parental controls, negative behaviors in gaming communities, and concrete proposals for safer gaming environments for children.
Are Turkish Lawmakers Changing Their Stance on Games?
According to TOGED, the tone in parliament has shifted significantly in six months. Where games were previously framed as a “problem to be cleaned up and banned” during December 2025 sessions, every lawmaker in the July meeting opened with “Our goal is not to ban games” and acknowledged the economic contributions of game developers. TOGED described this as a major positive shift.
However, a critical disagreement remains. Despite being presented with peer-reviewed research concluding that games do not cause real-world violence, lawmakers resisted accepting the findings. Their position, as summarized by TOGED: “You are not the main culprit, but we cannot accept that games have no fault at all.” The association attributed this resistance to years of media stigma and concerns that international studies may be influenced by economic interests.
Why Technical Ignorance Creates a Ban Risk
TOGED’s most alarming finding from the meeting was that while lawmakers are personally familiar with games, they lack understanding of how the gaming industry actually works from a technical and administrative standpoint. This knowledge gap has led to proposals that would be impossible to implement in practice.
Examples TOGED flagged include:
- A national rating system: Lawmakers suggested Turkey should build its own game classification system, despite the existence of PEGI and the fact that classifying over a million games through a state apparatus would require enormous resources.
- Government-linked age verification: Proposals included having platforms verify player ages through Turkey’s national e-government system, track which games children download, and automatically email school counselors when problems are detected.
- Data sovereignty concerns: TOGED warned that such a system would expose children’s biometric and personal data to thousands of foreign companies, creating national security risks.
The association made a blunt assessment: no global gaming platform would build such a complex system exclusively for Turkey. Instead, they would simply block Turkish users entirely. Well-intentioned but unworkable regulations would produce the same outcome as an outright ban.
What Does Turkey’s Current Gaming Law Actually Do?
Turkey’s first-ever gaming regulation was passed by parliament on April 22, 2026, published in the Official Gazette on May 1, and is set to take effect on November 1, 2026. It amends Law No. 5651 (the Internet Law) and introduces legal definitions for “game,” “game provider,” “game distributor,” and “game platform” for the first time.
Key provisions include:
- Foreign gaming platforms with more than 100,000 daily users from Turkey must appoint a local representative.
- All games must carry age ratings; unrated titles are automatically classified as 18+.
- Platforms must offer effective, user-friendly parental controls.
- Non-compliance triggers fines of up to 10 million TL initially, rising to 30 million TL for repeat violations.
- After fines, bandwidth throttling of 30% at four months and up to 50% at six months may be applied.
- The original power to completely shut down platforms was removed from the final law.
TOGED played an active role in shaping this legislation. Nine of its 11 requested changes were accepted, including reducing the maximum bandwidth throttle from 90% to 50%, allowing unrated games to remain available with an 18+ label instead of being removed, and eliminating the obligation for developers to share comprehensive data with authorities.
How Does This Compare to Global Gaming Regulation?
Turkey’s regulatory trajectory aligns with a worldwide trend of tightening rules around children and gaming, though its approach differs in key ways.
In Europe, PEGI overhauled its age-rating criteria in June 2026 with the most significant reform since its creation in 2003. Games with loot boxes now receive a minimum PEGI 16 rating, while titles featuring NFTs or blockchain mechanics are automatically rated PEGI 18. Time-limited purchase offers trigger at least PEGI 12, and games with entirely unrestricted communication get PEGI 18. These changes apply to all newly submitted titles.
The European Union is going further. The European Parliament called for an outright ban on loot boxes when they provoke gambling-like behavior in children, and the European Commission is preparing sector-specific rules under the upcoming Digital Fairness Act. The UK’s Online Safety Act already mandates age assurance and risk assessments, backed by penalties of up to 10% of global turnover.
Brazil enacted a ban on loot box sales to minors in 2026. In the United States, proposed legislation like the Safer GAMING Act and Kids Online Safety Act would require default parental controls, restrict financial transactions for minors, and impose new obligations on platform providers.
What makes Turkey’s situation distinct is the risk of unworkable mandates. While European and American approaches mostly build on existing industry frameworks (PEGI ratings, ESRB, platform parental controls), some Turkish proposals would require entirely new infrastructure that no global platform has built anywhere, including China.
What Happens Next?
The parliamentary investigation commission has roughly two months left in its mandate. Its findings and recommendations could directly shape the scope of any second gaming law. TOGED has signaled it will continue engaging with lawmakers to bridge the knowledge gap around technical feasibility.
For players, the immediate impact centers on November 2026 when the current law activates. Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation Store, and Xbox will need local representatives and age-rating compliance. The removal of the platform-shutdown provision means access should remain intact.
The longer-term concern is whether a second wave of regulation introduces requirements that global platforms cannot or will not implement for a single market. Turkey’s gaming sector generated $2.76 billion in global mobile revenue from Turkish developers alone in 2025, and its domestic market continues to grow. Whether that growth continues depends heavily on whether regulations stay technically grounded or drift toward the unworkable proposals TOGED has warned about.
For now, the association’s message to the gaming community is clear: the first law was a beginning, not an end. Continued advocacy, public engagement, and domestic scientific research remain essential to preventing well-meaning regulation from becoming an accidental ban.
