As part of Pocket Gamer Connects London 2018, SuperAwesome chief strategy officer Paul Nunn gave a talk on how to effectively develop for a mixed audience.

Nunn defined a mixed audience as both young children and an older audience, traditionally marked as anyone over the age of 13.

The problem with having a wide audience is privacy regulation, with COPPA and GDPR-K enforcing rules to protect children's privacy and information.

Even if you don't intend to design a game for children, Nunn warns that children will still find your game online and may play it, and if you ever want to diversify your revenues, you may at some point begin licensing for kid's products.

Good news, bad news

The "bad news" about regulation is that it can really ruin a business due to high fines, and "ignorance is no longer bliss" – developers cannot argue that they don't know that children are using their apps and games.

Europe is also struggling to settle on a definition of what a "child" is, with France and other countries deciding it is anyone under the age of 16, while the UK defines it as anyone under 13.

The "good news" is SuperAwesome itself, according to Nunn, which provides technology that makes it possible to display adverts to a kids audience and continue to generate revenues, while still being COPPA-compliant.