It's a legal requirement they have to do just like other adult sites or businesses that require a age check to use their site.

Unless you want them to start requiring you to submit your personal ID there is no other way around it.

It's not meant to keep kids out. It's meant to prevent you from taking them to court when your kid lies.

Originally posted by Sandvich #Savetf2 #Fixtf2:

Steam asking for your age is pointless

It isn't hard to lie, if Steam doesn't know your age it will ask you when you click on a 17+ game, however, the problem is you can easily lie, a kid could say that they are 18+ when they aren't, it's flawed.

Age gates are meant to indemnify the service from erroneously displaying mature content to someone underage. It shifts the burden from the service to the user. Then when a parent wants to sue Valve for showing mature content to their kids, Valve can simply point to the age gate. If the user lied about their age then the user is liable, not Valve.

We see these same age gates everywhere on the Internet from cigarette and alcohol websites to porn/nudie sites. Steam isn't the only one that has them.

Originally posted by Sandvich #Savetf2 #Fixtf2:

It isn't hard to lie, if Steam doesn't know your age it will ask you when you click on a 17+ game, however, the problem is you can easily lie, a kid could say that they are 18+ when they aren't, it's flawed.

There is a huge difference between the mental aptitude of most adults versus most children as well.

That is normally why children are not allowed to do what adults do.

What is flawed is the lack of common sense you show by assuming it is pointless.

I guess that's what you get when there's this much bureaucracy. You get stupid things like this which do not work and are just annoying.

Originally posted by Sandvich #Savetf2 #Fixtf2:

It isn't hard to lie, if Steam doesn't know your age it will ask you when you click on a 17+ game, however, the problem is you can easily lie, a kid could say that they are 18+ when they aren't, it's flawed.

Age gates are about determining responsibility. The intent is to stop Karen from suing because her precious little Billy saw a boobie. As the only way for him to have done so is for either Billy to have lied about his age or for Karen to have irresponsibly let him view such pages while she entered an inappropriate age.

Originally posted by ghost:

I guess that's what you get when there's this much bureaucracy. You get stupid things like this which do not work and are just annoying.

It's working perfectly even if you don't understand why or how.

Originally posted by ghost:

I guess that's what you get when there's this much bureaucracy. You get stupid things like this which do not work and are just annoying.

Actually it's what you get when people in society refuse to take personal accountability for their choices and actions.

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by ghost:

I guess that's what you get when there's this much bureaucracy. You get stupid things like this which do not work and are just annoying.

Actually it's what you get when people in society refuse to take personal accountability for their choices and actions.

Of course not. You can just write a disclaimer of sorts instead of this stupid "What's your age" thing. Or anything else which is not as idiotic.

Originally posted by ghost:

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Actually it's what you get when people in society refuse to take personal accountability for their choices and actions.

Of course not. You can just write a disclaimer of sorts instead of this stupid "What's your age" thing. Or anything else which is not as idiotic.

We've already had disclaimers because people refused to take personal responsibility for their choices and actions. We have age gates now because people still refused to accept responsibility even with disclaimers, and when they keep refusing to accept personal responsibility, we'll get the next stupid thing, because people are inherently ignorant and irresponsible.

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by ghost:

Of course not. You can just write a disclaimer of sorts instead of this stupid "What's your age" thing. Or anything else which is not as idiotic.

We've already had disclaimers because people refused to take personal responsibility for their choices and actions. We have age gates now because people still refused to accept responsibility even with disclaimers, and when they keep refusing to accept personal responsibility, we'll get the next stupid thing, because people are inherently ignorant and irresponsible.

You aren't getting my point, or maybe I am not getting yours. Why does the company need to do anything about this irresponsibility? My point is, they should not be responsible and certainly not need to implement things which make no sense.

Originally posted by ghost:

Why does the company need to do anything about this irresponsibility?

To make sure anyone who tries to drag them into court will get laughed at by their lawyer.

It's there to take the legal burden off of Valve. If you lie about your age willingly then Valve is no longer liable, the user is.

Originally posted by ghost:

Originally posted by BJWyler:

We've already had disclaimers because people refused to take personal responsibility for their choices and actions. We have age gates now because people still refused to accept responsibility even with disclaimers, and when they keep refusing to accept personal responsibility, we'll get the next stupid thing, because people are inherently ignorant and irresponsible.

You aren't getting my point, or maybe I am not getting yours. Why does the company need to do anything about this irresponsibility? My point is, they should not be responsible and certainly not need to implement things which make no sense.

Certainly they shouldn't, but unfortunately history has proven that isn't how the world (and lawsuits) work.

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by ghost:

You aren't getting my point, or maybe I am not getting yours. Why does the company need to do anything about this irresponsibility? My point is, they should not be responsible and certainly not need to implement things which make no sense.

Certainly they shouldn't, but unfortunately history has proven that isn't how the world (and lawsuits) work.

Ok, well, that was what I initially meant. Maybe bureaucracy wasn't the right term. How law works? Maybe I should have said that.

Originally posted by Sandvich #Savetf2 #Fixtf2:

It isn't hard to lie, if Steam doesn't know your age it will ask you when you click on a 17+ game, however, the problem is you can easily lie, a kid could say that they are 18+ when they aren't, it's flawed.

Be glad you don't live in my country, because over 30,000 games have been banned for us here on Steam because they don't meet our age rating system. Not to mention the AO games, which are generally blocked for us.