Originally posted by SleepingZombie:

This makes no logical sense

It avoids a single CC doing the rounds to 'validate' lots of adult users. It's an anti-fraud feature.

The actual inconvenience is Steam tying the verification to the stored payment method. It may of convenience for people to NOT have the CC stored for purchase purposes but just for verification purposes.

Sorry to hear it. Here's one think you could try
How to Change Your Steam Mature Content Settings!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7R3M_CaWS4

Originally posted by Jaunitta 🌸:

Sorry to hear it. Here's one think you could try
How to Change Your Steam Mature Content Settings!

Its nothing to do with content settings. It's the UK Online Safety bill. Some sites require ID to confirm, Steam have gone down the road of confirming with a credit card. Imgur have cut access to the UK off entirely!!

Originally posted by SleepingZombie:

So I have the misfortune to live in the uk. So steam requires “verification” I’m over 18. It will only allow a credit card to do this, not a debit card.

If you remove that card from your account after, steam will remove the over 18 verification from your account.

This makes no logical sense and I can only see it as them wanting to make sure people have a line of credit attached to their account so people can keep buying games when they can’t afford it.

This practice is hella immoral, I can see no justification for removing the verification.

Especially on accounts (such as mine) that are over 21 years old. Steam accounts are not transferable, so I must have owned it that entire time, so how can I be under 18?

Age of account has zero relevance.

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;


Valve have chosen credit card as they have the payment processes in place and Ofcom only requires one method to be used.

So leave the credit card there for verification and when it comes time to pay for a purchase choose "another payment type".

I agree it is hardly optimal, but I assume that would function as a work around. You dont HAVE to use the stored credit card.

Wouldn't mind so much if it just kept it on file/linked to the account, but not saved for use. I can't just start making purchases with the CC without having to enter it's details again. I don't save cards on any account.

The worst part about this is that credit card ownership in the UK is pretty uncommon. None of my friends or family have ever even owned a credit card.
As an age assurance method its pretty bad for the specific country's bill its addressing. Would be nice if steam offered alternative methods at least.

Originally posted by Supafly:

Wouldn't mind so much if it just kept it on file/linked to the account, but not saved for use. I can't just start making purchases with the CC without having to enter it's details again. I don't save cards on any account.

That could fly in the face of data protection laws.

The sad reality here is that under the UK's recent age laws, this is a thing.

I don't know what the OP is doing but I can only speak for myself in saying that I have access to over 18 content and I haven't had a credit card since 1987.

I don't use credit at all, so it's always been strictly debit card on here.

And of course, contrary to what the OP says, it has BUGGER ALL to do with lines of credit - that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Originally posted by SleepingZombie:

So I have the misfortune to live in the uk. So steam requires “verification” I’m over 18. It will only allow a credit card to do this, not a debit card.

If you remove that card from your account after, steam will remove the over 18 verification from your account.

This makes no logical sense and I can only see it as them wanting to make sure people have a line of credit attached to their account so people can keep buying games when they can’t afford it.

This practice is hella immoral, I can see no justification for removing the verification.

Especially on accounts (such as mine) that are over 21 years old. Steam accounts are not transferable, so I must have owned it that entire time, so how can I be under 18?

It does make sense, as it's the law in the UK(as Steam(Valve) doesn't want the headache of holding a bunch of personal information about you on their servers), so you can thank your government for it

Originally posted by TBS AlexDK:

Originally posted by SleepingZombie:

So I have the misfortune to live in the uk. So steam requires “verification” I’m over 18. It will only allow a credit card to do this, not a debit card.

If you remove that card from your account after, steam will remove the over 18 verification from your account.

This makes no logical sense and I can only see it as them wanting to make sure people have a line of credit attached to their account so people can keep buying games when they can’t afford it.

This practice is hella immoral, I can see no justification for removing the verification.

Especially on accounts (such as mine) that are over 21 years old. Steam accounts are not transferable, so I must have owned it that entire time, so how can I be under 18?

It does make sense, as it's the law in the UK(as Steam(Valve) doesn't want the headache of holding a bunch of personal information about you on their servers), so you can thank your government for it

Small point but just to be clear here, there is NO law of the UK. It's the law of England and Wales - those two go together. There are separate laws for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Think there’s a few things that might have come across wrong in my first post.

I have no issue with age verification, I have an issue with the only method of age verification being via a method that is actually uncommon in the uk.

What happens when my card expires or I close that account. Do I need to constantly own a credit card to be age verified?

On a platform that doesn’t allow an account to be used by more than one person - or transferred to another person - it makes no sense to remove age verification once it’s been granted unless there is a genuine reason to believe the person using the account is different from the person verified.

It’s like an expired ID; just cause the id is out of date doesn’t make me any younger than the day before it expired. My date of birth remains the same.

Originally posted by Yojimbo:

The worst part about this is that credit card ownership in the UK is pretty uncommon. None of my friends or family have ever even owned a credit card.
As an age assurance method its pretty bad for the specific country's bill its addressing. Would be nice if steam offered alternative methods at least.

Germany has adult content laws, and credit cards aren't an age verification method under German law. All German users are restricted from adult content, there is no age verification option.

The only reason UK users have any option is because CC's are valid age verification and Valve already accepts CCs. If CCs stopped being valid tomorrow, you should expect to be in the same boat as Germans.

I think a lot of users are missing the reality, it doesn't matter how many UK users have CCs. Valve knows exactly what percentage of ot's UK customers have/use a CC on Steam. It only matters that it required almost zero effort to implement and anything that requires more effort seems to be a nonstarter for Valve.

Maybe that will change in the future. In the meantime... it's the current option or no option.

Originally posted by SleepingZombie:

On a platform that doesn’t allow an account to be used by more than one person - or transferred to another person - it makes no sense to remove age verification once it’s been granted unless there is a genuine reason to believe the person using the account is different from the person verified.

It's to stop abuse. By forcing you to keep your credit card on file, you cannot sell age verification bypass using your credit card because it's a huge security risk to keep it on file on another one's account.

Originally posted by SleepingZombie:

Think there’s a few things that might have come across wrong in my first post.

I have no issue with age verification, I have an issue with the only method of age verification being via a method that is actually uncommon in the uk.

What happens when my card expires or I close that account. Do I need to constantly own a credit card to be age verified?

On a platform that doesn’t allow an account to be used by more than one person - or transferred to another person - it makes no sense to remove age verification once it’s been granted unless there is a genuine reason to believe the person using the account is different from the person verified.

It’s like an expired ID; just cause the id is out of date doesn’t make me any younger than the day before it expired. My date of birth remains the same.

Being expired = not valid.

Originally posted by SleepingZombie:

...
This practice is hella immoral, I can see no justification for removing the verification.

Especially on accounts (such as mine) that are over 21 years old. Steam accounts are not transferable, so I must have owned it that entire time, so how can I be under 18?

There are probably ways around this. Are you sure you're over 18?