Originally posted by Chris:

We genuinely understand where you're coming from and we appreciate your feedback.

We acknowledge that there may be several other options for age verification. As this is a new process, we are still gathering data on potential pain points for users and will take your feedback back to the team. We are sorry for the inconvenience this new requirement is causing for you and the rest of our UK users.

The second half of the message is the same boilerplate as before, but they have finally acknowledged that “there may be several other options for age verification”! I hope they are starting to move towards providing an alternative for those of us who can't or won't get a credit card (which is our valid choice).

Everyone who is angry about this, you need to contact Steam Support directly, to politely but firmly make your voice heard. Go to: Help > Support > My Account > Data Related to Your Steam Account > Contact Steam Support (at the very bottom of the page).

So Valve says they're still working on the implementation and your take away is, "Guys we gotta we gotta keep making a lot of noise and wasting resources so Valve will do the thing they're already doing."

Originally posted by Chris:

We need them to know how many of us have a problem with this. If they brush you off at first, reply again still being polite but explaining that many Brits don't have credit cards, either for financial or moral reasons. It is fine that credit card verification is an option for people who have one, but there should be another option for those of us who don't believe in taking on irresponsible consumer debt.

Valve knows how many UK users use credit cards, and how many don't. You don't need to make a lot of useless noise for them to do a couple of database queries.

Originally posted by Chris:

You should also of course continue to contact your MP about the OSA [https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/] and remember to only vote for parties that promise to abolish the OSA (currently only Reform and a few non-Parliamentary parties, but hopefully this will grow).

You need to be patient. But you're kidding yourself if support is doing piles of work to get your noise from A to B. They're just going to tell you whatever ever boilerplate so you "feel heard", and hopefully placated that something is happening. Whether you keep doubling down on making noise, or are just patient, the outcome will be the same.

The current implementation isn't written in stone and I'm sure no one is confused that there's complaints about it. Do you think developers operate in sensory deprivation tanks or something?

They've acknowledged they're working on the problem, that's all there is to it. The only thing that will happen by spamming them with this nonsense is it will affect users who have actual issues that Support need to deal with. The report system will be clogged up even more than it already is and people will be waiting even longer to have their issues looked at.

No, your encouragement here is not a good thing. Nor will it help solve your problem any quicker.

@nullable I hope Gabe sees this, bro

@datCookie You're Australian, how about you keep your nose out of this one.

Originally posted by Chris:

@datCookie You're Australian, how about you keep your nose out of this one.

You encouraging people to spam Steam Support affects everyone who uses Steam, regardless of what country they live in. If I need to contact Steam Support for something and their entire system is clogged with spam, my issue isn't going to be resolved as quickly as it would have otherwise been.

They've already given you an answer and stated they are working on it. What does submitting more support tickets do? They're still gathering data and them getting more reports won't magically solve this problem any faster.

Its basically always been known they were going to implement other methods eventually. Why just start with 1? I have my theories but they are just that theories, only the people at Valve know the real answer.

Originally posted by Draug:

Its basically always been known they were going to implement other methods eventually. Why just start with 1? I have my theories but they are just that theories, only the people at Valve know the real answer.

Why 1? Cause it's Valve and they usually take the easiest route.

Originally posted by Draug:

Its basically always been known they were going to implement other methods eventually. Why just start with 1? I have my theories but they are just that theories, only the people at Valve know the real answer.

I can give you a "theory".......they just did cc in the first place as everything to gather/compare that data is already existent in the backend and therefor valve does not need to spend additional money and resources to use that immediately.

Keep in mind that if you continue to badger Steam Support with the same query, they will at some point tell you enough is enough. You will then start to face action against your account. So it's not a good idea to encourage people to spam support. Submit a single ticket each, isn't a problem. But go past that and you're just being a nuisance they will swat away. And then nothing will change.

Originally posted by Draug:

Its basically always been known they were going to implement other methods eventually.

Even this gives Valve too much credit. They had previously been insisting in their replies to us that credit card-only verification was the only option they had. And they've had years to prepare for this. There's no reason why they should have launched with only one option if they always intended to add more.

Originally posted by bansama:

Keep in mind that if you continue to badger Steam Support with the same query, they will at some point tell you enough is enough. You will then start to face action against your account. So it's not a good idea to encourage people to spam support. Submit a single ticket each, isn't a problem. But go past that and you're just being a nuisance they will swat away. And then nothing will change.

This is why I said to be polite. It's not the support staff's fault that this stupid decision has been made, but they are our only conduit to communicate with the corporation. If we don't make our voices heard Valve will assume that there's no problem.

Wierd its only credit card when most use debit cards in europe but its due to you need to be 18 to have a credit card wich removes need to have id registeation

Originally posted by lailaamell:

Wierd its only credit card when most use debit cards in europe

Debit cards, typically, aren't a valid form of age verification, hence why CCs are being used here

Originally posted by Chris:

Originally posted by Draug:

Its basically always been known they were going to implement other methods eventually.

Even this gives Valve too much credit. They had previously been insisting in their replies to us that credit card-only verification was the only option they had. And they've had years to prepare for this. There's no reason why they should have launched with only one option if they always intended to add more.

I can think of several reasons to launch with only 1 method.

All the methods that are acceptable to ofcom for OSA compliance likely cost valve a fee of some sort. If Valve rolled out the program with the cheapest to them method, and got as many people verified using that method before rolling out the next more costly methods it could save Valve significant amounts of money.

Another reason they might have launched with only 1 method was if they were being forced to implement a method or face fines by ofcom. Credit card checking was already basically baked into the system so minimal work would have needed to be done to simply make some ui changes in regards to it. Other methods would require more testing and stuff to implement as well as new security systems for their data while CC verify can piggyback on existing security for the wallet.

Originally posted by Chris:

@datCookie You're Australian, how about you keep your nose out of this one.

I am very sorry and apologise in advance for what I'm about to say... But... Looking at the literal spam of threads that have been posted about this since the start and knowing it was coming literally weeks before... You guys are literally both annoying and hindering the other users on the board. Frankly I think the last time we've seen this was during the payment processor fiasco a few weeks/a month ago. Yes, in my head I'm linking this situation to that other one in term of how annoying and how bad it looks. Just a bunch of people who should already know what's going on and what was coming but still show up here to whine about something they don't seem to truly understand. There is even people who are raising the argument that the whole world should segregate the UK internet instead of caving in. That's how extremely people react.

There is also a vital component to all of this: this is a worldwide problem that the UK just created for the whole world. There is no "staying out of it" in this. People look at what you guys are doing and literally the common people of the whole world say out loud "I don't want this to happen here where I live".