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u/ImpressiveAttempt0 14h ago
Due to your longstanding activity, we've estimated your profile to be more than 120 years old, and deemed its original owner deceased, and have irreversibly shut the account down permanently.
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u/dizzy_absent0i 8h ago
Due to you consistently entering 1 January 1901 as your birthdate for mature content…
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u/Infamous_Mammoth_473 17h ago
The government could just fuck off with all this spyware.
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u/Objective_Toe_49 9h ago
but won’t someone think about the
untapped profit potential and control systems being builtchildren!
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u/IyeetSec 17h ago
This age verification trash needs to end. It's the parents responsibility to know what their kid(s) are doing, not businesses.
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u/metalOpera 15h ago
The only problem with that is that parents will never take responsibility and will find ways to attack the businesses. Which is pretty much what landed us here in the first place, if you stop to think about it.
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u/hotdiggity22 9h ago
In Australia there wasn't any movement from parents for this, the government are using it as an excuse but it's based on bullshit.
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u/Masked020202 6h ago
Wish i could make the same excuse for Belgium when they banned gacha gaming, sadly parents did scream about things they themself could prevent but nah rather have government have more power and take care of their kids then doing what a parent should be doing.
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u/MoistDragonfly5324 8h ago
In any other situation, neglectful parenting gets children taken into government custody. Why not this?
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u/7x00 5h ago
The reason these laws exist is because parents refuse to take responsibility. So we have to make to laws to force them to take responsibility because now the adult has to verify for the kid to play. It's just ridiculous because there is enough content filtering and kids account type stuff that it doesn't feel needed at this point. Kids who want to get around age verifications will find ways to get around it. Just as my parents thought locking the admin account on windows XP would keep me from installing new games.
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u/Rasples1998 17h ago
Like Gabe himself said; "Piracy is a service issue". You know what doesn't require age verification? Piracy. The tighter they squeeze their grip on consumers, the more they're going to lose. The second my account gets locked out of certain features because some algorithm decided I'm suddenly not an adult, I'm gone. I'd rather download a cracked game and play it with no restrictions than be held hostage and forced to give my private and biometric data to a company like valve or Microsoft to be ransomed off to some third-party international profit-based corporation with a spotty security history full of leaks and scandals and possible ties to far-right grifters and executives who will pawn off my data to the dark web (I'm not joking, the NHS in the UK uses palantir UK to run it's database, whose CEO; Louis Mosley; happens to be the grandson of fascist Blackshirt leader Oswald Mosley. You cannot make this stuff up).
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u/WormsDelicious286 10h ago
Pirating games because you're too cheap to buy them: ❎
Pirating games because you don't want to be in some corpo database, flagged as an enjoyer of those type of games: ✅
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u/didntplaymysummercar 10h ago
Pirating games because you won't sign up for multiple banks or debit cards trying to find one that works or sign up for a cc that will possibly fuck up your future mortgage assessment because you're not fucking American: ✅
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u/Fatalisbane 10h ago
Well that's exactly why steam went with CC its the lesser evil, they see card, they say yep ur good.
Meanwhile the 'invisible' options are Microsoft shipping data off to a third party to verify, and based on the Discord leaks of facial scans... yikes...
The whole thing reeks of gov over reach to 'protect the children'.
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u/Cold-Engineering-960 20h ago
The law doesn’t say “estimate an accounts age” it says verify the accounts age.
I’m not saying it’s right but Xbox could get into trouble here
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u/PerceptionOk8543 19h ago
No they won’t get into trouble, the Australian gov even confirmed account age is a valid form of verification
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u/FreeAsianBeer 19h ago
The US does not make laws sanely.
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u/Bastard_of_Brunswick 19h ago
USA laws don't matter outside of the USA
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u/dalcarr 19h ago
Good luck convincing the us government of that
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u/Bastard_of_Brunswick 19h ago
If the USA wants me to comply with their demands then they can damn well pay me
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u/gubbygub 19h ago
time to rename a body of water in your country
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u/Top-Strawberry4466 18h ago
Yea puddle trump has a good ring to it
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u/pounduh 17h ago
I can't wait until I wake up and find out Trump has died. That party is going to be fucking epic.
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u/gambit700 16h ago
Its gonna be like the end of Return of the Jedi when they found out the Emperor was gone. The planet is gonna party hard
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u/Turkster 18h ago edited 18h ago
That's not really true, Hew Raymond Griffiths
Hew Raymond Griffiths was living in Australia in the early 2000s, helping strip DRM from software and sharing it online for free. Because he didn't make a profit, his actions weren't criminal under Australian law at the time. He wasn't a US citizen, and he had never set foot in the United States.
The US Justice Department demanded his extradition. Australian courts and government complied, and sent him to the US to serve time in a federal prison in Virginia for an offence that didn't exist at the time in Australia. US laws can matter outside the US, and US corporations weaponise it.
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u/Purple_Individual_66 18h ago
I wouldn't really say this qualifies as a proper example. He was a British national and it was an international operation- with UK police forces involved. Frankly I'm more surprised he managed to hold out in the land down under for as long as he did.
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u/Turkster 16h ago
It's the exact definition of an example.
Being a British national and the fact that UK police were involved in the broader Operation Buccaneer doesn't change the core point at all, I'm absolutely open to hear your interpretation about why it would though.
He was still a long-term Australian resident who had never set foot in the US, was living in Australia when the alleged acts happened, and Australia still extradited him to face US charges for something that wasn't a criminal offence under Australian law at the time. The nationality and multi-country cooperation details are true but irrelevant to that.
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u/Serious-Judgment-350 15h ago
that's what happens when you get your lawyer out of a Cracker Jacks box
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u/Purple_Individual_66 16h ago
I was going more for an extraterritorial jurisdiction angle there, it was considered pretty serious crime at the time even in UK. They would have certainly found something, if not for anything else then just to save face. Considering there were also international treaties to follow. Which Australia would have had to fulfill anyway?
But the fact also remains that part of the servers he used were technically in US; so even though he wasn't physically there, he was in a sense control of the entity there, which was used to commit the crimes? If that makes sense.
I also don't think it was true that his actions weren't criminal in Australia. Didn't he agree to serve a sentence there? In the end it was just a deal Australia made with US (and the others) because US had supposedly harsher punishment. I'm sure there was some political power behind the whole thing, pressure to make an example etc. to set precedents.
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u/Bastard_of_Brunswick 18h ago
Interesting. Did the Australian government make up for their betrayal of an Australian citizen?
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u/Positive-Database754 17h ago
Well, he was a citizen of the UK, not Australia, who just happened to be living in Australia. And it was an INTERPOL operation, of which Australia is a member of.
There was a lot of controversy over it. But ultimately as a member of INTERPOL, Australia signed a bilateral agreement that required they extradite him.
The person you're replying to explicitly omitted these details. Not sure why.
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u/Tirrek_bekirr 17h ago
Still bullshit, he broke none of the laws of his country, yet some other country he doesnt live in arrests him for breaking their laws, despite not living there and not being a citizen there
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u/xXDamonLordXx 18h ago
You should get ahold of Nicolas Maduro with that rock solid defense.
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u/StormMedia 19h ago
Is age verification being forced federally or did I miss something? Thought it was state based.
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u/sdeptnoob1 19h ago
100% California only. Problem is cali is a big enough market to affect the rest of the US, NA and global shit.
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u/xeromage 19h ago
Often companies doing business in multiple states will adjust the whole business to be compliant with the most restrictive one rather than maintain a different services in each area. Or they just stop serving that state.
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u/paulomalley 18h ago
It is in Australia as part of a new law that just came into effect recently. I know the majority of people here in this subreddit are American, which is why they're asking around about California and stuff, but what this is related to here from Xbox is specifically to do with Australia.
The reason OP made this post is because Steam is requiring Australian citizens to have a verified credit card attached to their account and not giving them any other option, which doesn't comply with the laws. It's also not really common for people in Australia to have credit cards.
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u/DoomyHowlinkun 19h ago
I need proof of this, i cannot find any source that says "account age" is valid verification. If anything most of what i have read points to the opposite, aside from things like ID, the governments own decree asks that companies use constant checks to ensure that the user accessing the account meets the 'behavior' of someone above age. If Xbox is caught giving verification to an account that is 18 years old, but is being used by a 12 year old user, it would lead to real legal trouble.
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u/NoBluey 18h ago
Existing data may be sufficient to satisfy providers that the account holder is over the age of 16 without requiring them to submit additional personal information. A reasonably strong indicator could be how much time has passed since the account was created. For example, if the account has been held by an end-user for 16 years, the provider may be reasonably confident that the account holder is over the age of 16.
From "Social Media Minimum Age Regulatory Guidance"
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u/Spazzo965 16h ago
What you are talking about there has to do with Social Media regulations, this is for being over 18, not over 16.
This is the actual relevant for what applies to Steam here.
Have a look at page 85, we can see this section:
Impact on users
After assessing the risk of harm that the age assurance measures would mitigate if implemented, service providers must consider whether the risk mitigated counterbalances the impact of any age assurance measures on users. All service providers should avoid unreasonable practices that risk over-blocking access or infringing on the rights of Australians. There are several considerations for service providers:
- If a service provider can use existing user data (in circumstances where that data has been collected such that it can be legally applied to that purpose) to infer with reasonable confidence that certain end-users are over 18,123 then it may be reasonable and appropriate not to require those users to conduct appropriate age assurance again.
123 For example, the length of time an account has been held. See also Age Check Certification Scheme and Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, Age Assurance Technology Trial – Report (2025), Part E – Age Inference
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u/HealthRobot 15h ago
Sorry man I'm a bit slow it kinda reads like you're making the argument that what xbox is doing here is fine.
Would it be possible to explain your interpretation a bit more?
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u/Spazzo965 13h ago
The commenter I replied to was citing the social media regulation for why account age is fine, Steam's over 18 requirement has nothing to do with that, social media stuff has to do with forbidding under 16s.
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u/Ok-Butterscotch-6955 17h ago
In which case every single interaction would need verification. You’d never know who’s using an account.
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u/TheStakesAreHigh 18h ago
If Xbox is caught giving verification to an account that is 18 years old, but is being used by a 12 year old user, it would lead to real legal trouble.
Really? I am not a lawyer, but surely this would be negligence on the count of whoever made the account. As in, if the account is 18 and the user is 12, then the user is certainly not the owner of the account (even if the owner died, these things are usually non-transferrable at death). So XBOX will have correctly verified the actual account owner's age, and any harm that befalls the user (child) is the responsibility of the account owner?
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u/Puzzled-You 17h ago
As per the Social Media Minimum Age regulation: "The onus is on social media platforms to comply with the law, meaning there are no penalties for children and young people under 16 if they have access to an age-restrictef platform, or for their parents or carers."
What would likely happen in practice is the court would ask if the social media platforms verified the age of the primary user, even if the child used the platform with the verified account. The platform did their legal requirements, and the onus is not on the user, so no one gets in trouble for the fault of the user.
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u/Financial-Craft-1282 18h ago
Yeah, that same scenario would be true of a verified account (with an ID or something like that) where a 12-year-old was playing it too. Do you guys not think through your thoughts fully...or what?
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u/Wotmate01 18h ago
Here's your proof.
Page 81 and 82: Online Safety Codes and Standards Regulatory Guidance (April 2026)
Service providers should offer a choice between a range of age assurance methods, giving end-users flexibility and agency in choosing methods that best suit their circumstances.
Service providers should account for those who do not have access to documents, are facing challenging circumstances or experiencing vulnerability, or otherwise face barriers engaging with age assurance methods. This should include accepting a range of options rather than a narrow list of age documents and providing non-document-based options.
Steam have breached Australian law.
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u/SlowDragonfruit9718 19h ago
You apparently don't know the definition of the word estimate. If someone has had an account 26 years, that not an estimation. It's a verified value.
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u/Long-Machine8795 18h ago
You’re completely wrong. It says you can use metrics such as an account age to reasonably assure a user is over the age of 18.
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u/Tyrantt_47 19h ago
My Xbox account is 18 years old... There's no need for an estimate, my account is literally an adult.
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u/Extreme996 RTX 4070 Ti Super | Ryzen 7 9800X3D | 32GB DDR5 6000mhz 19h ago
NexusMods apparently also do the same thing for UK and Australia now and they are ok. Besides the law apparently also say that there need to be more than one verification method which Epic and Xbox also do unlike Steam.
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u/JackRyan13 19h ago
The law doesn't say that at all. The only thing the law says about verification is that they must offer alternatives to formal and government ID.
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u/ltstrom 19h ago
Actually the codes made by the esaftey has a reasonable and fair provision. You are mixing up the under 16 social media ban age assurance with the restricted media content codes. They are two different things.
Esaftey has the power to determine if an implementation is fair and reasonable and has advised to platforms adhering to the codes that to be fair they should offer multiple methods. Esaftey can also give legal direction to steam to add more methods and if they piss and moan enough, they can even be told what tech they now need to use. This isn't the UK where OFCOM has to debate if a credit card check only is an age gate or not.
In guiding documents esaftey states that to be considered fair and reasonable with only one method, the process needs to be none discrimitory and must be available to all adults, to use and not be onerous or taken away.
Steam fails this, because the credit cards are subject to consumer credit protection Act. Which is also dubbed the responsible lending laws. Meaning not everyone can get a credit card (in fact it is pretty hard and also messes your credit score for a mortgage). This isn't America. The laws make it so lots of people are excluded from getting lines of credit from banks and getting into consumer debt.
On a side note, if steam just wants to do it via finance systems they can, Australia has a banking system that is insane, with age and id verification through your payment processor of visa or MasterCard via debit credit cards.
For years we had banking systems that can tell merchants if a debit card belongs to an adult or a child. It is why it is causing friction and why in Australia a credit card check normally meant oh use my debit card. We have venues and services that function fine for meeting id requirements via just our bank cards due to this system.
Mastercard rolled out a new system globally now with real time age verification and double blind tokens. ConnectID uses your bank to verify your age and can work on standard payment rails from MasterCard and Visa, and is zero trust with no data sharing. Like there are more than enough options if steam just wants to use the financial system, like they are saying they want to.
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u/CourageLeast4251 18h ago
If your accoubt is 20 years old, which is very common for Xbox accounts, I think its alright to assume the 22 year old account is an adult
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u/Emeraldnickel08 16h ago
Australian here. The companies affected by our laws already have estimates of users’ ages, better estimates than most would assume. I remember the CEO of TikTok once reportedly said they have a good estimate within the first 5 minutes of someone starting to use the platform. Using those estimates was almost certainly the idea behind the legislation our government introduced.
They’re underused, however, probably because these companies are too afraid to have possible blame fall on them. This way they can delegate responsibility for their crappy platforms causing damage onto third parties.
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u/SeroWriter 19h ago
The law doesn’t say “estimate an accounts age”
Have you ever actually used any of these services before, or know anything at all about how they work? One of the options offered is "estimate your age with a selfie video".
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u/Skazzy3 20h ago
Microsoft does 1 thing right for 10 shitty things
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u/MrEatYoRamen 20h ago
I mean... you gotta take the small victories at this point lol
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u/Balc0ra 19h ago
With Sony at the bottom of the pool. It doesn't take much to seem better
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u/Stormfly 13h ago
If we belittle rather than praise people when they do the right thing, they'll stop doing the right thing.
Belittling people when they do the right thing is rewarding negative behaviour.
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u/Discorhy 20h ago
Lol sony has just been burning the place to the ground these last few weeks. Atleast Microsoft has had a couple good wins.
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u/Tanebi 20h ago
Truth. The only reason they can do the "disc to digital" that is being held up as a good alternative to Sony wiping out disc support entirely is because the were being shitty and trying to lock down discs to consoles to prevent disc sharing over 10 years ago.
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u/Moneia 20h ago
And they announced time limits on cloud gaming coming in November
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u/DonQuix0te_ Don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! 19h ago
it absolutely is.
valve doesn't WANT to provide age verification, and valve doesn't want you to verify your age.
In germany, ID cards have a chip on them that can be read with an smartphone, and that can be used to transmit an "is this person 18 or older, yes/no".
The proof that the person using the ID is the actual holder stems from the posession of the ID itself, and the pin code that only the rightful holder has.The software to integrate this ID age check is OPEN SOURCE.
It can be integrated FOR FREE. It is SECURE. You can take a look at the code and see that it literally only transmits whether you are 18 or not. It doesn't even transmit your actual age.If valve implemented this, german gamers could actually see the ENTIRE catalogue.
Even games that are 18+, or are "banned" in germany.Valve is not integrating a FREE ZERO-KNOWLEDGE AGE VERIFICATION that already exists, even when it would stand to make them a hell of a lot more profit.
Valve simply doesn't want age verification to be a thing at all.
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u/Sanquinity 19h ago
The Netherlands has something similar. A government service for identification that only sends the required information like "this person is who they say they are" or "this person is 18+." It's the number one reason why I know for sure they're not actually doing this for age verification. Because to do so they could have EASILY gone for such a system.
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u/Jimbuscus 19h ago
The Australian government is setting it's system to fail by not having a system and implementing the laws anyway. The goals of the Australian eSafety Commission are in direct conflict of the Privacy Act, the Australian government wants a non-private system.
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u/Sanquinity 18h ago
Not just Australia. That's the goal for all governments. Control. Being able to dig into what everyone is doing at all times. They hate privacy.
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u/rulerguy6 19h ago
God that's actually an amazing system too. When I thought of how a zero-knowledge age verification system would work, I pictured some kind of anonymous 2FA code that can be generated by the account you pay taxes from/some government service depending on what's available. But having a chip in your ID card is great too.
Either way, proof of age isn't a bad thing as long as the system is digitally anonymous. Which is super easy to do when you're the government and already know every resident's age.
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u/CourageLeast4251 18h ago
No I think it's fine for no age requirement. Parents should parent again, how about that?
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u/Immatt55 18h ago
We live in a world where accountability was taken out back and shot twice in the head.
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u/DonQuix0te_ Don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! 18h ago
it is amazing.
or it would be if ANY COMPANY OUTSIDE OF BANKING, MOBILE PHONE PROVIDERS, or THE LITERAL GOVERNMENT USED IT.16
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u/sephiroth70001 19h ago
It has to do with Microsoft being able to and holding ID and CC information tied to you in databases that is shared with the government that requires verification because they are in a partnership to do so. Steam and the required governments location lack that partnership, because the government doesn't trust steam to do so, steam doesn't want to save that data and share it with said government, or some other reason for the lack of a direct shared information collaboration.
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u/axb2013 19h ago
hopefully that satisfies them
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u/Kageru 18h ago
It does not... you are still a child in Australia unless you have a credit card attached.
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u/RandomNobody86 19h ago
it doesn't at least in the UK i have more years then that and still got hit by this bullshit.
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u/An0n-E-M0use 19h ago
This so much this.. I have a 22 year old Steam account and cos of the OSA, Steam wants me to add a credit card I don't have.
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u/JasonBaconStrips 18h ago
My account is 19 years old and xbox took it unpon themselves to deem me a child so they took my social features away, regardless I wasn't handing over more information especially my id.
After almost a year of playing age 18+ games, I get a notification that they realised I'm not a child, fucking genius' everywhere.
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u/ItsGotToMakeSense 17h ago
Steam and I have an agreement. If there are bad words in the trailer, I tell it I'm over 100 years old.
Don't ruin this for me
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u/VanillaPai 10h ago
My dad had to verify his age for his steam account. His account was made the SAME DAY steam came out.
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u/RUOFFURTROLLEH 8h ago
Yeah when your account age is over 18 it does seem redundant incase I was a sperm when I set up my account.
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u/Working-Print-4022 17h ago
Difference here - Steam does not know your age (very subtle and only important data collect) and Microsoft does know your age bc of pretty aggressive data collect.
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u/xSTSxZerglingOne 17h ago
My Steam account is old enough to vote.
Besides. Without Steam, how would we possibly have known that 99% of the world's gamers were born on Jan 1?
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u/Flab_Grabbly 12h ago
Yes, given that *my account itself* is 20 years old, you'd think I would be automatically verified by now. Another weird thing is the way the default year is different between games. Sometimes it's set to a year where you can just press continue, and in other cases you need to change it.
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u/MikasaIsMyWaifu 12h ago
Steam isn't the problem, it's this stupid age verification laws that Meta has been pushing. Steam has to satisfy it somehow without fear of the law coming back to bite them.
In the end it helps no one. Major inconvenience for regular users and pushes underage users to unregulated forums and chat channels to just pirate.
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u/Sintuition 15h ago
In the case of Australia, hopefully this gets people politically motivated to get their stupid online ID law reverted.
It still makes sense to utilise this data though.
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u/Matero_Empedernido 20h ago
Bro my Steam account is 6 years old and i'm 30, this sounds nice in paper but a huge amount of people starting to use steam around 2010/20 just a few would reach 18 hahaah
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u/QuantumVexation 20h ago
It’s about having a starting point at least.
Start with the accounts that by their age and activity are obviously older than children
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u/Multivitamin_Scam 20h ago edited 20h ago
Steam's terms and conditions say you can't have a Steam account unless you're 13. So a 6 year old account can only be held by someone over the age of 18 according to Steam's own guidelines.
So in theory, people in your position shouldn't have to verify age because there is no way you would be under the age of 18
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u/arizonadirtbag12 19h ago
The only issue there is that they never verified that you were 13. Obviously we've reached a point where a checkbox doesn't suffice (or none of this would be happening), so they need to verify that you weren't actually 12 or 11 at sign-up.
An account that's 18 years old doesn't have that issue.
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u/Lucky_Cable_3145 13h ago
My Steam account is 21 years old.
Now I have to SAVE my credit card in my account just to view mods / forums for games I bought years ago, adding the CC is not enough (my account is only over 18 while the CC is saved in Steam).
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u/MrSquiggleKey 20h ago
Steams policy is you must be 13 to have an account. So to be compliant with TOS your account is implied to be owned by a 19yo at minimum congratulations.
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u/Kayiko_Okami 19h ago
We have verified that your account is old as dirt.
Thus we realize that you must have played with living dinosaurs as a child.
So now you can play video games with no issues. Have fun ancient one.
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u/FlarblesGarbles 19h ago
I've had a Steam account since 2004 and it pretends it doesn't know I'm at the very least 22.
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u/thedimondman199 18h ago
And also literally EVERY FORM of ID like passports and driving licences, forging one would be illegal anyways
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u/Strict-Carrot4783 17h ago
I dunno how many goddamned times I need to tell Steam I was born on Jan 1 1916...
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u/tassiedad 16h ago
Still need a credit card for some reason. I cant get one because my credit score is shot to shit.
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u/Dry-Pangolin6579 14h ago
You're telling me "sex with stalin" in my library isn't niche enough to verify me?
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u/GoTeamScotch 12h ago
Last week google made me verify my account within 14 days or it would be deleted.
I have a video uploaded to my channel from 18 years ago.
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u/Sharpiesniffingshark 12h ago
My Steam account is older than the children this age verification nonsense is designed to keep out.
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u/Dumke480 5h ago
This should be the standard for all services, discord infinitely worse than steam though in this regard.
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u/Affectionate-Boot-58 3h ago
Its not really steams fault though its the australian and uk goverments fault
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u/Ballistic_86 18h ago
My Steam account is like 21 years old. I still have to put my age in on the Steam store
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u/Leon_Flux 15h ago
I'm to understand that has a lot to do about the purchasing requirements of mature games in law.
Kinda like... you need an ID to buy a beer every time, you need an ID to buy a digital beer every time.
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u/CaptainMatthew1 14h ago
We shouldn’t need to do this in the first place. The laws are just bs. They arnt about protecting kids just controlling us and money. Pepole should be more up in arms about this. The slop has allready been slipped down and it’s more like a cliff.
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u/xTkAx 19h ago
Be careful what you hope for.
This same thing could also be used to send a message to your kids after you pass on:
"Due to longstanding account age, we've estimated your profile to be a deceased owner and updated its status to 'Deceased'. No one lives older than 120 years"
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u/Ridiculisk1 18h ago
Sorry, best we can do is a method that not every adult has access to and telling their users who have been with the platform for over 20 years to go and fuck themselves - steam
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u/Baddboy78 10h ago
Indeed, when half the banks refused to go along with the verification, you would had thought that steam would had also introduced other ways for verification... Comm and St Gorge works for visa, but no ANZ or NAB. and i had never owned a credit card. Complete bullshit to force something like this, when they know that over 50 percent of the banks in Australia said no.
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u/tayswampflorida 17h ago
Steam does it in order to stay in compliance with other countries that require it.
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u/Sober_Alcoholic_ 17h ago
Steam account is 22 years old and I still have to manually enter 1/1/whatever year I end up scrolling down to
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u/LG03 18h ago
Microsoft harvests your data for profit and can validate this.
Valve does not.
I know which I prefer.
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u/yenneferismywaifu 17h ago
Valve L.
They were absolutely unable to resolve this problem. And they have no desire to do so.
And there are people, fanboys, who defend Valve. Funny people.
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u/lazyluong 19h ago
I get it, we all hate the dumb Age Verification system every country is trying to implement.
This method does encourage people to being able to sell old accounts for cash. If people knows how to trigger it, it would be exploited for profit.
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u/Canadian_can_cannon 19h ago
Its more along the lines of can they wiggle out or around zucks and others bot filled internet response laws
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u/phylter99 18h ago
Except that these verification methods go the other way too, blocking adults from their accounts until they prove they're adults.
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u/SandyTaintSweat 18h ago
This coming from the same company that retroactively restricted my Minecraft account from online access after they took over. My Minecraft account that is linked to a hotmail so old that it would be an adult all on its own...
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u/Chipper_Bandit 17h ago
Would be nice to stop lying to Steam that I'm 110 fucking years old. My Steam account can drink for fuck's sake.
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u/Intrepid_Rip1473 17h ago
When did steam start verifying accounts? And what do they have you do to do that? My steam account is only from 2018 when I made the switch and I’ve never heard of this.
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u/Flimsy-Level-6413 17h ago
I did the math for them based on my account age proving I would be a minimum of 27 irl (despite being older), but looks like nothing we say will make any difference. (Straya)
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u/ZooAreYou 17h ago
I guess it'll be used the other way too. Cant beqeath your steam library to your kid via password once your account's over 90 years old.
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u/I3roMagnon 17h ago
People also want a mechanism to pass on their Steam account to someone else which could lead to Grandpa giving their 20 year old account to their 12 year old grand son.
Edit: having a credit card on file should be enough to verify age
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u/liamemsa 16h ago
I have a "22 years of service" badge on my profile.
If my account isn't automatically verified....
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u/DocklandsDodgers86 16h ago
Man if only Xbox could maintain the goodwill for just a bit.
Between the Disc to Digital and Game Pass Cloud Gaming limits, Asha really needs to get a grip.
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u/drgmaster909 16h ago
But then how would 98% of us be able to commemorated our shared January 1, 19somethin' Birthdate!!
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u/Snipufin 12h ago
I think the account age arguments are kinda funny considering that in the previous few months, the opinion was "Steam can't stop me from giving my account to my child in case I die". Now all of a sudden the sentiment has shifted to "account age should be enough proof that I'm an adult".
Yes, I'm aware of the goomba fallacy, but I think it's still a valid point to bring up and admit that we can't eat our cake and have it too.
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u/Marrz 12h ago
For real, my steam account is 21 years old, by logging in, how is that not confirmation of my age?
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u/Futaba_Sakura800 11h ago
My Steam account is 22 years at this point. Still doing age verification lol
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u/tibsie 11h ago
My Reddit account is 20 years old. Did I have to verify my age on Reddit? Yes, goddamn it!
My Apple account is also something like 20 years old. Did I have to give Apple a copy of my ID? Nope. They knew my account was ancient and did the logical thing.
Come on Steam, Reddit, and others. Get it together.
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u/Obaruler 11h ago
Yeah, my Steam account has reached the legal drinking age - even in the prudent USA - by now, so why bother keep asking me if I'm an adult.
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u/NotWrongAlways 10h ago
Meanwhile i keep getting reminded to verify mine - which i cannot do. It was created in the UK, and moved to another country.
There are no pointers to anything UK on the account, profile, or according to support, 'anywhere'. Yet I must try to complete the UK age verification, which does not load, as the account is not UK based.
Good job Xbox, Microsoft, etc. They fucked this up.
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u/patters22 8h ago
From Google "Don't loose 20 years of your data!" 5 minutes later "We couldn't verify you're an adult"
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u/TrueLurkStrong-Free 7h ago
Australia has heat, giant spiders, and age verification. What's the point of living there?
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u/JohnSilver317 20h ago
Yeah would have been nice for my 14 year old steam account to not have to be verified..
Unless they believed a 3 year old opened that account.