The three dimensions of Safe & Responsible Gaming at Rovio

By Niina Ojala, Lead Product Manager, Player Safety and Compliance

At Rovio, we put the players at the forefront of everything we do. You can see it right there in our mission:

However, in order to create the kind of environment that players will want to stick around in for decades, it is essential to put in place some ground rules for conduct in our games, and also in how we develop games. With that in mind, sustainability has its own vision for how to achieve this:

Rovio’s sustainability team has three different focus areas based on the goals laid out in our mission, with safe & responsible gaming being the way we create those enjoyable experiences for all our players. But how exactly do we ensure that we’re creating safe and joyful gaming experiences? How can we identify and minimize negative influences in players’ experiences? That’s where the framework comes in.

Incorporating the Fairplay Alliance’s Disruption and Harms in Online Gaming Framework, we have created our own framework that outlines our goals and strategy to minimize harmful aspects that our players may face, and reinforces positive aspects in the gaming space for the players – as well as streamlining the internal processes and guidelines for the benefit of our players. Let’s jump in and take a look.

Our Safe and responsible Gaming framework contains many details and interconnecting factors, but at the high level, it is comprised of three distinct dimensions that address the needs of our players and our game production operations. First, is “extent of impact” – in other words, how ambitious and far-reaching can we be with our initiatives? Next, “internal engagement” describes how safe and responsible gaming practices are embedded into our teams and their work. Last, “external exposure” has to do with how much of Rovio’s brand, and peoples’ perception of the company, is defined by its safe and responsible gaming initiatives.

Each of these dimensions contains different levels to indicate the extent to which safe and responsible gaming practices have been incorporated. An organization operating at the lowest level will have games that meet only the legal baseline for player safety, they will have a centralized expertise for ensuring player safety, and they will at the minimum, collaborate with other gaming companies to build a common understanding of safe and responsible gaming and the practices necessary to make it happen.

That sounds pretty good, but in order to lead the industry in creating safe and joyful gaming experiences (as in our sustainability mission), we have to strive for more. Looking to the top of each dimension, an industry leader in safe & responsible gaming would be an active force for good in the industry. They would have engaged and energized teams who openly share safe & responsible gaming learnings with each other. Finally, this company would develop a reputation for being a responsible developer among employees, partners, and the general public. Of course all of this would happen on top of all the “pretty good” stuff in the lower levels.

This is an ambitious goal for a game developer, but Rovio is committed to their sustainability platform. Recently we have strengthened our sustainability team to increase our ability to put our strategy into action. In the interest of transparency, you can read about both our sustainability strategy and the actions we are undertaking, including how we are progressing, at our investor pages here. Also, if you are interested in learning more about Rovio’s safe and responsible gaming strategy, please watch my full presentation given to the Fairplay Alliance here where I break down this framework in detail.