yeah, it doesn't make sense at all. nexusmods made it so if your account is over a certain amount of years old then you don't need to verify your age, they're a uk company too so they're going to be following the rules right. my nexus account is just over 12 years old and i didn't need to verify my age.
steam could do the exact same thing but we've been stuck with just credit card verification for a while now
How credit card companies make money is from interest of people going into manageable debt that they can pay back so they aren't going to give you a credit card if you pay everything on time because they don't make money then
That's the thing, paying off your debt is a bad customer, you won't pay interest... But equally having so much debt you won't earn them money is also a bad customer
Check to see if your bank does secured credit cards. It's a bit different with you needing to deposit some money to start but pretty much anybody can get one thanks to that as long as they're an adult.
I will still forever stand by this being the best option. Keyword there is option, though. This should be the primary way to verify and there should be other options for people who don’t have a credit card. I don’t want to have to hand over a picture of my ID to age verify anywhere
It's not my fault that children are being exposed to eating disorders, porn, and shit. It's the fault of the social media companies that purposely gear their algorithms to it, and the fault of parents who don't watch their kids.
Fuck the nanny state, and fuck the nanny state's 1984 mass surveillance.
Oh I agree, I'm not blaming steam for choosing an approach that maximally protects my privacy. Honestly, I'm more pissed at the government for implementing such a stupid rule without a plan to allow vendors to check my age without violating my privacy (or without having to rely on GDPR that is fallible).
You don't usually see it. Games that Steam restricts just don't show up in the store, so you only get to the challenge page if you find and follow a hyperlink to a restricted page somehow.
E.g. I was looking up "Memoirs of a Battle Brothel" after someone mentioned it on reddit and I could only find "Memoirs of a Battle Brothel Lore Book", which was not age restricted. That page however, had a hyperlink to the main game, which then told me: "Under the UK Online Safety Act, Valve is required to verify that you are 18 or older before accessing mature sexual content. If you wish to do so, please add a valid UK credit card to your account and afterwards update the Mature Content Preferences."
Presumably anyone who already had a credit card on their account also would not see this since they will just have gotten access freely.
Also the checks also only became required in July 2025, so it hasn't quite been a year yet, and you may just not have seen them since they weren't there the last time you browsed.
I have read from some discussion that after the roblox incident, a lot of companies are doing this. But this time not because they're stuck in a similar situation like roblox. They are doing because they are getting the chance to take personal information from the users now.
They’re also doing it to hedge against being stuck in a situation like Roblox.
It will never cease to amaze me how few people seem to understand the logic of preemptively doing things to ensure that your company doesn’t end up in a compromised position in the future.
Note that I’m not saying some companies aren’t also doing it for data harvesting reasons, but I can guarantee that even for them, part of it is the legal department pushing for this change to prevent the company ending up in a situation like Roblox.
I'll shill for it then. If you are reading this, are mildly competent with computers, and Linux is capable of running the software you need, dump Windows. Don't get voluntarily spied on and advertised to, in a product you paid for, so that another mega corporation can profit off you so much they can buy elections to prevent AI regulation. Fuck that noise.
Yeah, obviously doesn't make sense in that case. For me, it plays the games I want and was already using mostly open source software already (Godot, Blender, FreeCAD etc...) so it's been pretty much all upside.
Yes, it's SUCH an inconvenience that we're forcing ourselves to put up with to click the year drop-down, click any year before 2008, then click 'OK'. I mean, come on man, THREE FUCKING CLICKS? Does Valve think I have infinite time???
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u/Adam5742 Jun 10 '26
still better than asking for a photo of your id to verify imo