YouTube has recently unveiled upcoming policies aiming to restrict uploads of content related to gambling or featuring realistic graphic violence in games. The upcoming YouTube update will likely be controversial with gamers, as it may affect videos of popular titles such as Counter-Strike 2, Overwatch 2, and even Grand Theft Auto 6.
Founded in 2005 and bought by Google the following year, YouTube is among the most popular platforms for watching video game content. YouTube has achieved earnings of over $9.79 billion in the second quarter of 2025, and the platform is likely to remain hugely influential for the gaming space in the years to come.
7 Best Games Popularized By YouTube, Ranked
For some video games, YouTube played an instrumental role in their popularity, catapulting obscure indie titles to household names.
YouTube Is Cracking Down on Gaming Content Related to Gambling and Violence
YouTube’s latest guidelines, which will start to be enforced on November 17, 2025, will likely make it harder for content creators to upload videos of some games. YouTube’s upcoming policies make three major changes, and two of them directly affect the gaming space, while the third is solely focused on age-restricting social casino content. One of the changes redefines “online gambling content,” which is currently prohibited from being directly linked to, marketed, or sold on the platform. The plan is to expand the definition to cover “online gambling with additional items that have monetary value,” including video game skins and cosmetics. This change would likely affect popular live service games, such as Counter-Strike 2, which has a thriving skin market. In practice, it’s still unclear how far the ban would go, as it could mean that videos would not be able to link to the game or its skins, but it’s uncertain whether videos featuring gameplay could break these rules.
Another, possibly more controversial change is related to gaming content that focuses on realistic violence. According to the new guidelines, content that focuses on “scenes of torture” or “mass violence against non-combatants” could be age-restricted. Elements such as the duration of these scenes, their prominence, and whether the human characters are realistic will be taken into account before the restriction. This could likely affect gameplay videos of games like the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6, a series known for having thousands of uploaded videos that commonly contain violence.
These are far from YouTube’s only controversial recent changes. A few months ago, YouTube started testing a new age verification feature in the United States, which could automatically restrict accounts believed to be underage, which was seen with suspicion by users.
In any case, some of these changes seem unavoidable. Lawmakers all around the world are cracking down on loot boxes, for example, and the trend seems far from stopping. It remains to be seen how these policies will be enforced by YouTube, though.
Source: Google