Originally posted by tristan2k6:

AGE VERIFICATION NEEDS TO GO

Valve should have stood with the other companies suing the uk in regards to the uk online safety act nonsense at the very least be offering refunds to anyone who doesn't want to comply with such tyranny , simply put if this was in the terms and conditions originally i would never have made a steam account , i will not be bullied by the UK goverment into giving up my id

You don't give up an ID. You give up your CC info, which most stores already have on file.

Originally posted by tristan2k6:

Valve should have stood with the other companies suing the uk

The 'other companies' being... Kiwifarms and 4Chan?

Repeating this in other threads doesn't change anything, especially about what Tito asked.

Do you know Age verification, or commonly Online Safety Act has been around for about a decade or longer, and the goat lipped pencil necked un elected wing nut (hand operated screw) bureaucrat control freaks have tried many devious things to censor and control the internet and they have failed every time, because wing nuts do not understand the nature or structure of the internet so easily by passed, ignored, failures, never actually gone anywhere, they will never control the internet, all we are witnessing is another attempt of the same ol same ol, the definition of insanity, and like always its just another fart in the wind.

Originally posted by tongsau5150:

Do you know Age verification, or commonly Online Safety Act has been around for about a decade or longer, and the goat lipped pencil necked un elected wing nut (hand operated screw) bureaucrat control freaks have tried many devious things to censor and control the internet and filed every time, by passed ignored, and a failures, never actually gone anywhere, they will never control the internet, all we are witnessing is another attempt of the same ol same ol, the definition of insanity, and like always its just another fart in the wind.

The UK's age verification law stems from the Online Safety Act 2023, which came into effect on July 25, 2025.

If Valve had stood with , then no one in the UK would be able to buy anything on steam, and very likely would not be able to access steam.

Remewmber. the people who decided on this aren't gamers. They're old people who likelyb have an active disdain for gaming.

Which other companies? I haven't seen any major game stores and such do anything other than comply.

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Which other companies? I haven't seen any major game stores and such do anything other than comply.

4Chan and Kiwi Farms are fighting back, but I'm not sure they have much to lose, and they're not gaming companies, of course.
Wikipedia, Apple, Meta, and the US FTC have all raised objections.
Gaming companies though? They seem to be mostly keeping their heads down. They're here to make money, not waves.

Originally posted by Haruspex:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Which other companies? I haven't seen any major game stores and such do anything other than comply.

4Chan and Kiwi Farms are fighting back, but I'm not sure they have much to lose, and they're not gaming companies, of course.
Wikipedia, Apple, Meta, and the US FTC have all raised objections.
Gaming companies though? They seem to be mostly keeping their heads down. They're here to make money, not waves.

Yep, even You Tube is coming out with these methods here in the states...

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/13/tech/youtube-ai-age-verification

And so, if people have a habit of saying, going to video game reviews, watching comic book stuff, or otherwise whatever the system deems in that you're not an adult over 18, we will need to provide ID not to be stuck in the kiddie park.

And so even if it's not government, companies themselves are gonna implement this under the guise of what may come.

What Steam needs to do is just be more proactive, rather than reactive.

Steam could have shopped out companies that could verify age in the UK other than just credit cards. Instead, they were reactive and took this step being it's the only one they can at this time.

But even here in the states, Mr Newell may want to come out with similar features, being inevitably we're going the same way with our own laws.

Originally posted by tristan2k6:

Valve should have stood with the other companies suing the uk in regards to the uk online safety act nonsense at the very least be offering refunds to anyone who doesn't want to comply with such tyranny , simply put if this was in the terms and conditions originally i would never have made a steam account , i will not be bullied by the UK goverment into giving up my id

You misunderstand what other companies are doing; the only ones actually taking the government to court over this are Internet Archive and Wikipedia, both of which are at risk for basic educational content. Ironically Mumsnet might be blocked because they refuse to implement the age checks, despite a sadly decent portion of their users being underage mothers who would rather get help from other mums than the government.

The rest are either abiding in inconsistent ways or leaving the UK market altogether because it costs less to take the loss.

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by tristan2k6:

Valve should have stood with the other companies suing the uk

The 'other companies' being... Kiwifarms and 4Chan?

As I keep saying, you can get people to support you to the hilt on literally ANY policy if you just select the correct fringe enemies. It is why communism isn't even meaningfully an opponent to capitalism any more. It is funny to see how much of this is just driven by group loyalty and hatred of other groups.

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by tristan2k6:

AGE VERIFICATION NEEDS TO GO

Valve should have stood with the other companies suing the uk in regards to the uk online safety act nonsense at the very least be offering refunds to anyone who doesn't want to comply with such tyranny , simply put if this was in the terms and conditions originally i would never have made a steam account , i will not be bullied by the UK goverment into giving up my id

You don't give up an ID. You give up your CC info, which most stores already have on file.

:nkCool:

That's a big issue in the UK though. Only about 60% of the population even has a credit card, and about 90% of those people live in England.

It's very rare to have a credit card in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland because our banking systems are different from the national one in England. So it's actually more punishing on your credit score to own one than not, so most people just don't.

Essentially the credit card system makes sense for countries like the US where they're it's almost unheard of to not have one. But here in the UK almost any NSFW game is gonna have 0 player base via Steam because credit card ownership is so low to begin with, and credit card ownership for people buying such games even lower.

Originally posted by Safebox:

That's a big issue in the UK though. Only about 60% of the population even has a credit card, and about 90% of those people live in England.

Steam is an digital store, it's user massively being familiar with online transactions. I doubt Steam has gone forward with a verification system most of their UK user base are alien to.
(Though considering the Valve way, it can still be a possibility)

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by Safebox:

That's a big issue in the UK though. Only about 60% of the population even has a credit card, and about 90% of those people live in England.

Steam is an digital store, it's user massively being familiar with online transactions. I doubt Steam has gone forward with a verification system most of their UK user base are alien to.
(Though considering the Valve way, it can still be a possibility)

But they quite literally have. Their reasoning makes sense for privacy reasons, as you need to be 18 to sign up for one. But that negates the government's own data that only 36.2 million people out of a population of 69.3 million people own a credit card, or the fact that it's not uncommon for credit card families to register one for their kid to teach fiscal responsibility.

We just don't have credit cards unless we teeter the poverty line cause the rewards are not very good compared to the US. So it's more common to just stick to debit cards since most banks have a much better credit system with those.

oh its far worse then that as i have a credit card and have made payment on it today to my steam wallet and have had my account for 14 years but still they don't let me go to mature content tagged game pages but yet they still play the videos of the games i hover over showing all the things they are trying to stop you seeing so what is the point if they show you all the videos and pictures the game has anyway all they have done is anger customers for no real reason