Thank you Valve for helping this Brit make a decision

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Chris 30 Aug @ 3:05am

I was about to buy a bunch of games in a few weeks' time for my birthday. You imposing credit card-only verification for the UK now has saved me from wasting my money on your platform. I'll go to GOG instead.

Why would I buy any games on a platform that might take away my ability to play them on a pointless whim that no one made them do? Today it's just the pure sex games, but in future? Will you block Dragon Age because it has nude romance scenes? Baldur's Gate 3? The Witcher? What about violent games, or games that feature drug-taking? We can't trust you any more.

I don't mind credit card verification being one option among many for those who prefer that. But in Britain most young people, i.e. your target audience, don't have a credit card. You could have just added a second verification method like everyone else has. No one made you only have credit card verification. I hate the Online Safety Act and I hate the Labour and Conservative governments who enacted it, but you're not hurting them by doing this, you're hurting us.

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Showing 1-15 of 151 comments

King of Games 30 Aug @ 3:10am

good move, GoG is great

Sciencemile 30 Aug @ 3:19am

Is there a reason why this requirement wouldn’t be applied to GOG as well eventually? Wherever you go you’re still in the UK after all.

Chris 30 Aug @ 3:25am

Originally posted by Sciencemile:
Is there a reason why this requirement wouldn’t be applied to GOG as well eventually? Wherever you go you’re still in the UK after all.

Hey, thanks for the question. The Online Safety Act unfortunately does apply to all sites, though how they implement it is up to them and there is a specific exemption for sites that sell videogames, which should have been enough to let Valve ignore it. But broadly yes the OSA will apply to everyone.

But no other site anywhere on the entire internet has gone with credit card-ONLY verification. It's totally insane given how few young Brits have credit cards, to the point of seeming deliberately spiteful, especially given the carve-out for videogame stores that should have made Valve exempt anyway. There are dozens of different ways to do age verification, and even if GOG does have to implement it eventually there is no reason to think they will also restrict it to credit card verification, which no one else has done, only Valve.

Nx Machina 30 Aug @ 4:04am

Originally posted by Chris:
I was about to buy a bunch of games in a few weeks' time for my birthday. You imposing credit card-only verification for the UK now has saved me from wasting my money on your platform. I'll go to GOG instead.

Zero to do with Valve as the other methods would fall under GDPR with regard to the UK. The Credit Card option is the frictionless option.

The Ofcom requirements are:

1) Age assurance methods – which include age verification, age estimation or a combination of both – must be ‘highly effective’ at correctly determining whether a particular user is a child.

2) They include: open banking, photo ID matching, facial age estimation, mobile network operator age checks, credit card checks, digital identity services and email-based age estimation;

Why a credit card? To able to apply and have one you need to be 18+.

A debit card does not prove you are 18+ because you can have a child bank account.

Last edited by Nx Machina; 30 Aug @ 4:12am

Chris 30 Aug @ 5:08am

Everything to do with Valve. No other website in the world has gone with credit card-only verification. There are plenty of methods that don't require the website owner to be a GDPR data holder, such as using one of the many third-party verification services. Besides which, Valve is already a GDPR data holder. So this white knighting for the multi-billion-dollar corporation falls flat yet again.

Start_Running 30 Aug @ 5:18am

Originally posted by Chris:
Originally posted by Sciencemile:
Is there a reason why this requirement wouldn’t be applied to GOG as well eventually? Wherever you go you’re still in the UK after all.
Hey, thanks for the question. The Online Safety Act unfortunately does apply to all sites, though how they implement it is up to them and there is a specific exemption for sites that sell videogames, which should have been enough to let Valve ignore it. But broadly yes the OSA will apply to everyone.

But no other site anywhere on the entire internet has gone with credit card-ONLY verification. It's totally insane given how few young Brits have credit cards, to the point of seeming deliberately spiteful, especially given the carve-out for videogame stores that should have made Valve exempt anyway. There are dozens of different ways to do age verification, and even if GOG does have to implement it eventually there is no reason to think they will also restrict it to credit card verification, which no one else has done, only Valve.

They likely will do the exact same thing because there are very few actualy accepted means of doing it. Credit Card was ironically deemed to be the least intrusive. But you'll figure that out soon enough.

Originally posted by Chris:
Everything to do with Valve. No other website in the world has gone with credit card-only verification.

Yet.

All corps eventually settle on the same solution to a common problem.

Originally posted by Chris:
There are plenty of methods that don't require the website owner to be a GDPR data holder, such as using one of the many third-party verification services.

Which aren't free last I checked. See how that works?
Those services charge money and no matter how smalle the fee is it adds up real fast when you realize this would be at Best per session. Multiplied by a couple dozen million users....and mind you this isn't to purchase.. this is just to look at the store pages...

Yeah I don't see any story eating that cost.

But hey. DOors thataway. Good luck to ye. Maybe ellect better government officials in the future.

Dom 30 Aug @ 5:22am

You're talking as if Valve has any choice regarding this.

They're literally required by law to do this. There is no option for them.

Ofcom regulates the digital landscape in the UK (not Valve) and they will also make decisions as to what is deemed "harmful for children", and thus, which games will require age verification mechanisms and which will not. If they ever tell Valve that some game has to be behind this "age verification wall", Valve doesn't have options but to comply.

My understanding is that they need to be careful with debit cards because people under the age of 18 can obtain them, and this would be a loophole that they could literally be fined for. There's a possibility that they are looking at introducing other verification methods but presumably this will take some time. Valve doesn't seem to want to work with third-parties on this, which I can understand - because some of the service providers for age verification have a rather controversial privacy record.

Just give it some time.

Last edited by Dom; 30 Aug @ 5:23am

theghostoftom 30 Aug @ 5:26am

This restriction is both ridiculous and impractical. No way am I getting a credit card specifically for this platform when I have and ACCOUNT OLDER THAN THE AGE RESTRICTION and a debit card that should also verify my age along with a pile of ID you could ask for.

Chris 30 Aug @ 5:27am

Originally posted by Dom:
You're talking as if Valve has any choice regarding this.

They're literally required by law to do this. There is no option for them.

This is not true. There are MANY possible forms of age verification. Valve has chosen the only one that excludes a majority of its target audience.

We all hate the OSA, we all hate the government, fine. We don't need to be told how bad they are. But Valve implementing the OSA in this maximally spiteful way doesn't hurt the government, it just hurts Steam's users. Don't punish us for the sins of the government the Boomers elected.

Justice 30 Aug @ 5:30am

WHY should i have to prove to steam how old i am. when it shows in my profile i have been here since 2005 and was above 18 then.

the UK has been warned about its governments way of controlling its citizens way of thinking saying and doing, what they want for many years now, but you mostly ignored it. you have very little time to save what is left of the UK.

just read the book 1984.

Last edited by Justice; 30 Aug @ 5:30am

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Chris 30 Aug @ 5:32am

Originally posted by Justice:
WHY should i have to prove to steam how old i am. when it shows in my profile i have been here since 2005 and was above 18 then.

the UK has been warned about its governments way of controlling its citizens way of thinking saying and doing, what they want for many years now, but you mostly ignored it. you have very little time to save what is left of the UK.

just read the book 1984.

Stop blaming us. Only 20% of the electorate voted for Labour. We didn't want this. This smug “vote harder senpai!” attitude doesn't help anything.

#11

Dom 30 Aug @ 5:35am

Originally posted by Chris:
Originally posted by Dom:
You're talking as if Valve has any choice regarding this.

They're literally required by law to do this. There is no option for them.
This is not true. There are MANY possible forms of age verification. Valve has chosen the only one that excludes a majority of its target audience.

We all hate the OSA, we all hate the government, fine. We don't need to be told how bad they are. But Valve implementing the OSA in this maximally spiteful way doesn't hurt the government, it just hurts Steam's users. Don't punish us for the sins of the government the Boomers elected.

Which method would you prefer?

Understand that Valve doesn't have their own web infrastructure for conducting age verification checks like face scanning. So they would have to use dedicated third-parties. If they would've gone that path, would you be on these forums complaining how they're directing you to third-parties and require you to hand over your identification to those? Some of which have very controversial user privacy records.

#12

Old Vagabond 30 Aug @ 5:36am

Originally posted by Chris:
Originally posted by Justice:
WHY should i have to prove to steam how old i am. when it shows in my profile i have been here since 2005 and was above 18 then.

the UK has been warned about its governments way of controlling its citizens way of thinking saying and doing, what they want for many years now, but you mostly ignored it. you have very little time to save what is left of the UK.

just read the book 1984.
Stop blaming us. Only 20% of the electorate voted for Labour. We didn't want this. This smug “vote harder senpai!” attitude doesn't help anything.

Quite. And if you dare to put into writing what you think this country really needs, you'll be imprisoned.

#13

Tomato 30 Aug @ 5:38am

Originally posted by Dom:
My understanding is that they need to be careful with debit cards because people under the age of 18 can obtain them, and this would be a loophole that they could literally be fined for. There's a possibility that they are looking at introducing other verification methods but presumably this will take some time. Valve doesn't seem to want to work with third-parties on this, which I can understand - because some of the service providers for age verification have a rather controversial privacy record.

Just give it some time.

The debit card thing is true. Google verified my age a while ago when they started requiring it by accepting my debit card (I am above 18 but still not a good way to do it).

The problem here is that a lot of us younger adults do not have/want a credit card. I literally could not get one if I wanted one anyway. The lack of any way to verify our age outside of a credit card is just absurd. I'm basically going to have to use the strategy that most kids will just do anyway, ask my parents if I can link their credit card. And it kinda defeats the purpose of that form of verification. Not that any other is really much better, but at least everyone has a face and chances are some form of ID.

Steam also have had time to prepare. They've had 2 years warning that this was coming into effect and so should have prepared alternatives by now. Maybe we'll have to wait another 2 years before they remember to add something else?

#14

tgheretford 30 Aug @ 5:53am

Originally posted by Nx Machina:
Originally posted by Chris:

A debit card does not prove you are 18+ because you can have a child bank account.

It turns out that children have been using their parents credit card to get around age verification. Ofcom is aware of this and it is likely in the future credit cards will no longer be deemed a robust verification method. In the same manner regarding facial age estimation because of how using Death Stranding's photo mode has gone viral.

As the Online Safety Act is designed to assume everyone is a child until proven otherwise and removes the mandate to parent from parents, this is going to happen.

Also, what happens to someone who has a gambling or debt problem and therefore can not obtain a credit card but may play games as an escape, one of their few pleasures in life? Now denied by Steam?

This is something that people need to write to their Member of Parliament and Ofcom about. It is in effect over-censorship which itself is a violation of the Online Safety Act.

Last edited by tgheretford; 30 Aug @ 5:54am

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Date Posted: 30 Aug @ 3:05am

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