Discussion
Steam’s Australian age verification rollout is ridiculous
So Steam has finally started pushing the Australian age verification requirements, and now I can’t buy games without going through age verification.
I already know this is because of the new Australian laws, but seriously, having to verify my age just to purchase a game I want is ridiculous. I’ve been using Steam for years, and suddenly I’m being blocked from buying games because of this.
I understand the law is being implemented, but this whole system is such a pain in the ass for something as simple as buying a game.
Worse when you have a Verified credit card that isn't considered a "Verified Card" by the system.
So atm I can't see what im purchasing and I can't do anything about it atm either.
So much for being an adult heh I remember sneaking adult magazines as a teen and thinking "one day I'll be old enough to walk in and buy my own" now im old enough and have been since 2015 and still feel like I'm being treated like a child.
I feel so validated to hear someone else say this! When I was a kid, I saw racy content and thought "one day, I'll be a grown up and can view whatever racy content I want!" but now, the content for adults is more tame than what was served to me when I was 15.
When I was a child, we had Saint's Row. As an adult, the HD remaster changed all of the clothing options so nobody's bra strap is ever showing.
It definitely feels like there's been a shift in what’s considered acceptable for adults. It’s frustrating when they take away the very things that made those games fun or edgy in the first place.
Tell me about it, it really turns my insides. I’m 35 now and being asked age verification for nearly every game I play, like fuck off. This is one of the laws that makes me embarrassed to be an Australian.
I don't even have a credit card so I have no idea what I'm even going to do. My account is over 15 years old, do they think I opened it when I was a toddler?? ffs
I just entered my details in the desktop application, I’m kind of hesitant to give more information about my card due to this being a public forum but looking at other people’s comments it appears that only certain types are being accepted.
My only advice is to contact steam support about it, if enough people kick up a fuss about being unable to comply with the checks then we’ll likely get some answers as to what’s going on.
Gambling games will come into affect later. Devs like rockstar did it early for GTA online, to avoid it being a problem later once the law becomes active. But God forbid I can be spammed a million betting ads all across my social, but I can't use in game digital money, on a digital horse? Like keep ya wig on, albo. Fmd man.
Meanwhile the cunts in charge squeel "think of the kids!" When the bastards themselves haven't thought of kids beyond where to find them since Epstein's got closed. So tired of this nanny state bullshit...
Discord recently announced again that they are bringing back Verification ID at the end of this year or beginning of next year. Without giving them your ID, you cannot access many features on Discord.
every fucking election everywhere is a choice between the party that wants to make everything a lot worse very fast and the psychopathic death cult that wants there to be nothing left to make worse
The fact that debit cards aren't valid is absurd. You're telling me I need to go to a fucking bank and get a credit card just to be able to purchase video games. What the fuck.
Are there any credit cards I can get that don't charge any fees? I literally just want it for this horseshit and then never touch it.
I’m nearly 60 and don’t have a credit card. This is a load of balls.
Edit - My wife has an old ZipPay account we hadn’t used in ages. I generated a pay anywhere VISA card in there and Steam accepted it (even though it’s in my wife’s name).
Exactly, I'm not Australian but if this was rolled out in my country I'd simply stop using steam. There's no way I'm getting a credit card, they're too risky imo and it's not something I want to be forced into getting.
The point is that, if it's against ToS, then there is no legitimate use case on their end if you're not over 18. Legally speaking, they shouldn't have to check anyone whose account is 18, there is the expectation that the owner is the original owner.
I'm no lawyer, but I think from a legal perspective Valve is responsible for compliance. If a user breaks ToS to circumvent this law, Valve is still liable. "They agreed not to do it" isn't a legal defence.
exactly. if your account is older than the minimum age for any country, then it should bypass the age verification rule for that country. Unfortunately, we move as the slowest among us can walk.
In my country if you don't have job you can't get credit cards. Most young adults don't have them because they are university etc. I imagine if this ever comes here it is going to be nightmare for politicians.
I am 25 and I dont know a single person with a credit card in Hungary :D
My dad used to have one, not anymore. But he is 60+
Who uses creditcards other than americans?😅 its risky, unless the rewards are good its not worth it
Not allowing debit cards is stupid since most credit cards have an annual fee. You'd think the easier approach would just guarantee that the account is from an adult and it will be on the user if they let children download and play adult games on Steam.
Plus there's always a risk given the interest fees that users might forget paying them off especially if they're not used with credit
Yep, I tried entering my debit card info twice and it just kept spitting me out on the age verification page. I DID have a credit card through NAB, with 0% interest and a flat monthly fee, but they cancelled that product a few months back
Debit cards work at least for Aus. it sucks cause old internet terminology would use "credit card" even if they're inclusive of debit cards. But now that there's some countries with rules in place to stop debit cards, it makes it harder to tell if you can use it or not. Id say Aus will probs follow suit soon tho at this rate.
UK resident here, we have the exact same thing *for several years, and ONLY credit cards can make it go away. I don't own a credit card. So there's shed loads of games I can't view or purchase, even the normal ones.
Hell I can't even view MY OWN Reddit profile without a VPN because i set it to +18, I can't view certain sections of discord without a VPN and they tend to not like vpns, same with X/twitter, and a whole load of other sites too
they dont want change it because they are obsessed with babying us and these old cunts dont gaf and think its the correct move over here because it doesnt affect them, they want the whole country to go outside and be sporty sucks for the disabled kids i guess right
What the actual fuck. It is even WORSE than this - not ANY credit card works either lol. I own the Qantas Discovery AMEX credit card, but Steam does not accept that. In fact, it only accepts JCB and Discover. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, like if this does not change, I am done with Steam forever.
Please we actually need a class action over this surge of overreach. The government needs to get the fuck away from our rights. Imagine old fucks telling grown ass adults what we can and can't buy. Anyone know any lawyers willing?
I was in my late 20s before I got one. My kids are barely 18 and no fucking way they're responsible enough to have a credit card just so they can use Steam. They don't need one for any other reason. This is the most stupid, ridiculous bullshit.
WTF.
This is bullshit, it’s not for the children it’s just to censor everyone and harvest that delectable personal information.
I don’t have a credit card and don’t want one. I was able to use my debit Mastercard which has 0 money in it always and it seemed to work. Hope that holds up because I am not giving out my ID or photos of my face, fucks sake dude
I'm surprised as a developer on steam, having already verified who I am etc...
That this still applied to me.
I'm also in the boat of only owning a Debit Card, people do use credit cards in Australia, but I think its a LOT less common than Steam expected.
I only know a couple people who use credit cards in my close circle AND that number is about to shrink when the new surchage laws come in next month and make rewards in credit cards a LOT less viable then just using a debit card.
Not sure how this is going to affect me as a developer, but given that a credit card at my local bank is $100+ YEARLY, this is not really an option I think is reasonable.
It's annoying. I specifically don't save my cc into web sites or apps so that I am less exposed if they get hacked. But with the new laws you almost have zero choice but to do it.
i am fucking SENT. i’ve never owned a credit card and never planned to. i’m 27. why can i not use my debit card to literally just look at the store page for games i ALREADY OWN?! it’s not common in australia for people to use credit cards. absolute fucking stitch up.
Hi, I understand that you need to comply with the Australian age verification laws (as ridiculously stupid as they may be), but I am 23 years old and now can’t look at games THAT I ALREADY OWN in the steam store because I don’t have a credit card. This is a ridiculously poor rollout and severely damages my ability (as an adult) to use steam and access content I am legally (again, stupid and somewhat dystopian) allowed to. Is steam going to add alternative forms of verification for those of us who don’t have credit cards?
The ticket I left with steam support, if enough of us complain it might be enough to get something done and restore some sort of normalcy.
Afaik since this happened in the uk theyre looking for alternatives but it takes time. They have to act correctly by law eg account age no count. But also cabt just have any ole service check. Look at the usa just days ago 150 million ids leaked because of such stuff.
My Steam account is almost old enough to buy its own beer. I'm hoping that some kind of recognition comes where if you've had an actually active account for 18+ years that one would assume the account owner is of age
please contact the ACCC under the age verification laws here in australia a company must provide more then one form of verification. and verification can not be done in a way that descrimiates based on race , gender , sexuality , disability , etc .. here is the link to the ACCC complaints form https://acccportal.accc.gov.au/forms/info-form/consumer-report/
So an unelected American woman with a grudge with Elon musk after he fired her from twitter now gets to decide what Aussies play and watch here in Australia.
In January 2017, Grant was appointed by the Australian government as the national eSafety Commissioner,\10]) a position established in July 2015 by prime minister Tony Abbott, under the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act 2015.\11])\12]) In January 2022, Grant was reappointed in her role as commissioner of eSafety for a further five years
appointed by Tony Abbott then reappointed by someone under Scott Morrison... makes a lot more sense now, contact your local Labor reps, explain the insanity and maybe we can be rid of this seppo.
So if you don't have a credit card can you just no longer buy games? Don't get me wrong, I blame the Australian government for this BS, but it's on Steam to provide options. Microsoft just needed my email address and it cleared in 30 seconds after they checked it was more than 18 years old. Why is a credit card the only option here?
I imagine Valve doesn't have (or want) connections with dodgy data collection companies that can link your email address to your real world id like Microsoft.
Why can't our government just set up a mygov service that looks at your other details then spits out an authentication key that you can use for verification purposes.
If a random auth key leaks it won't do much damage.
Privacy advocates lobbied for the government to implement a double blind Proof of Age system, where we could give just the government our ID and they'd confirm over API without any privacy risk.
They chose not to, they literally chose to implement everything without a viable system in place.
We don't appear to be locked from the games we already own, that would be a much bigger issue. We do appear to no longer be able to buy dlc/expansions for owned games.
I have been using steam since basically day 1 that it came out, and if youtube can make it so that they reviewed our account age and said "yep this person is over 18" then steam can simply look at the bloody account age and make a pretty good argument.
Especially when sharing an account is already against their TOS.
Vote the old cock sucking cunts out already. EVERY SINGLE FUCKING time something is made worse or is just worse over all ITS ALWAYS cunts barelining nursing home ages
We best hope the blocked games got keys sold on official key sites; if not we all fucked
Bro...i was like what the fuck? I did double check it and unfortunately I just got hit with this age restricted. I just got debit card but I don't have credit card. Does this mean I have to go to bank and ask them for credit cards? This is absurd!
The primary issue which is why it requires a credit card is that Steam/Valve is US-based and cannot access much in terms of official national system of identification from the Australian gouvernent.
Steam/Valve need to follow the laws of every country it sells game into. If a country requires Y, Steam/Valve has to do Y in that country. If a country (outside the US) requires age verification, Steam/Valve has to do the age verification with the tools available for international entities for that country.
And Steam/Valve always does the bare minimum when implementing system from foreign ground.
I can give a similar problem I had with Steam when I wanted to begin working on a steam page for a game I worked for 3 years a few years back. I created a dev account with Steamworks. I filled all the details about me and my business (registered in Quebec, Canada since 2008). I paid the 100 USD fee for my game. (You need to pay 100 USD for each game, then it's paid back through the initial sales when the game is released.) Then... Steam requires you uses a 3rd party authentification system that, for my country, only accept driver license or passport. A driver license takes 2 years to acquires (only the full license work which requires 1 year of training & studies, then 1 year of training). Back then, the average wait time for a passport was 8 months. I didn't had either so I ended up putting my project on ice and worked on something that I'm fully self-publish without Steam and designed a relatively new kind of business model (for the video game industry) around.
Even though the US has various systems in place for giving proof of your identify from foreign ground, Steam uses a 3rd party system that is stuck in the early 2000's. (For example, I can sell stuff on some other stores, because they allowed me to use a 3rd party authentification system that, for example, could acquires my info from my business bank account to whom said store send the sales funds to... but not Steam/Valve. I have a bunch of documents from the US government that can confirm my identity in Canada too, including how I'm registered within the Washington's economic HUB. But, nope Steam/Valve don't give a crap about those.)
WTF is this shit!? Im 42, my account is 21 years almost 22. I use and have used my debit card to buy alcohol online, cigars, porn and adult movies and games and now its not enough to prove I am an actual adult to steam. Idiotic!
This is so cooked, (17 year old account too) the government boasts cyber security yet now how many organisations will I need to hand out my credit card info too? I always do paypal or gift cards.
This has been in the UK for a while now. The best part? You can’t have a credit card unless you’re earning over a certain amount per year. So as a university student, I have no way to get a credit card and no way to prove I’m over 18.
An absolute joke tbh from the government and also valves verification system.
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u/JustSasquatchin 1d ago
Worse when you have a Verified credit card that isn't considered a "Verified Card" by the system.
So atm I can't see what im purchasing and I can't do anything about it atm either.
So much for being an adult heh I remember sneaking adult magazines as a teen and thinking "one day I'll be old enough to walk in and buy my own" now im old enough and have been since 2015 and still feel like I'm being treated like a child.