FiveM Age Requirements

[Ryan King]

G'day Gamers,

Today we are announcing a significant change to our community standards. Historically, we have permitted players as young as 13 to play on the server. We have become increasingly uncomfortable with this age group being exposed to the topics, attitudes and content expressed in roleplay which is not intended for a young audience. Unfortunately, the youngest members of our community have a discernible impact on the roleplay around them. Despite 13-15 year olds being less than 15% of our population, this group is overrepresented in reports and moderation mostly due to the lower maturity, shorter attention span and difficulty relating to others. We do not believe it is reasonable to impede roleplay and lower our overall standards of maturity to protect this group of young players. Based on our observations in recent months and the response from the latest survey, it is clear that improving roleplay standards must be our core focus.

As such, OzzyGaming is increasing our minimum FiveM player age to "16+", which will be reflected in our updated TOS. This was a tough and complicated decision that undertook a lot of discussion internally. We appreciate that this change will be upsetting to some of you, especially those who have been with the community for some time. We understand that there are people in the 13-15 age group who are great role players, however at some point a line has to be drawn to enact positive change. In our focus to improve meaningful engagement amongst players and the quality of roleplay, we have concluded that this change is required to support OzzyGaming's goals into the future.

In addition to this, we will also be updating the FiveM rules which will specify that players are to present themselves and roleplay as mature adults (18+). This was already implied within the roleplay environment but it clearly needs to be stated. These new requirements will be enforced through the new maturity (Code - "Ma") ban process which at this stage will be only applied with management approval due to its sensitive and subjective nature.

Some important points (FAQs):
- We will not be verifying players birthdays and will never ask for or accept personal identification or proof of age.
- The staff team will not accept reports against players for being underage, this is not an opportunity to submit reports against people you don't like.
- There will be no "ban wave" tomorrow, breaches will be handled on a case by case basis.
- Enforcement of this new standard will be based on management's judgement of players behaviour, demeanour and general maturity on the server.
- Players found in breach of this requirement will be placed on indefinite FiveM bans which may be appealed once they can demonstrate the required maturity level after some time.
- Affected Players who are removed from FiveM can contact support regarding their subscription status.
- Members who are under the age of 16 are still welcome across the rest of our community including Discord, TeamSpeak and Rust.

Again we apologise to those players who will be affected by this change and appreciate your commitment to this community. We are asking players to aim higher than present roleplay standards. We cannot magically make the roleplay quality improve directly but through these changes we are confident that the community will have a better ability to improve the overall roleplay experience. We appreciate that some people may have concerns or questions about this change, we just ask that these be directed to management privately so they can be addressed effectively. Bullying or harassment of anyone, especially young people will never be tolerated within the community. Please be respectful towards the community members affected by this change.