If I was in this story I think the first thing I'd do is hire someone to develop a body suit and helmet that connected to the game without the needle in you neck. Having the pain feel real, even when it's a critical hit, like a stab in the eye or chest is a deal breaker. No way a kid or even most teens could handle that. The mental and emotional scarring alone would be insane. People would be a wreck after that. You'd have a slight advantage of not feeling pain as others do but playing the game with a suit that didn't mimic real pain. And it would still require skill and practice.
It would be enough for me to simply play the game with a suit that vibrated or warmed up in spots on my body to let me know I was interacting with the game. Like a vibration to show you were hot in the back of warning the hand to show you picked up a warm mug. And worse since some server have illegal content like rape and murder of kids, being trapped in one of those with no exit, you might not even escape fast enough to tell the authorities. In a way, a person could trap you in the game and torture you without doing critical damage until you begged them to stop and promised not to tell on them. There's already been cases where the cops of the game didn't show up to save people in need of help right away. Even tho the game is designed to protect people against being abused and trolled by being murdered and raped or tortured.
I Just think a real sicko must be behind the game if they can be a founder of a game that doesn't stop people from being able to go too far automatically. Like if a person is breaking a rule, instead of Praetorans coming, that person is forcefully logged out of the game and unable to ever log on again. Ever. That would stop child porn server and rapists for sure.