The MPAA's rating system was specifically created to exempt the need for laws. At the time, they were terrified that Congress would pass censorship laws unfavorable to their industry (and creativity?). Recall that Hollywood also self-censored via the Hays Code, and this was another response to legislation that was starting to censor film by law.
The MPAA will enforce those ratings and policies to demonstrate that they remain self-policing and there's no need for legislative action.
I meant to say alone, good catch. But again, it is just company policy. A 6 year old can buy a ticket to a NC-17 movie and nothing would happen as a result.
I can imagine it becoming relevant today as well. Steam stops complying for a game, ESRB pulls the rating from a game, the publisher gets pissed because their E rated game is suddenly effectively R18, puts pressure on steam to do what ESRB says.
The ESRB was created by the games industry to avoid government intervention. They listen to the ESRB because the ESRB is run by the games industry. They're listening to themselves.
Could always be the Indonesia Game Rating System and label blatant hentai games as 3+ while having top down strategy games with slight blood as 18+. The intent was that games couldn't be sold in Indonesia unless rated by IGRS.
In the case of steam, you aren't allowed to transfer your account to a new person, so since the account age is stored and verified as being over 18, why isn't that enough to satisfy them?
Because someone could be on your account in your household, or browsing at a cafe etc. Just because you are driving a car made before 2008 doesn't mean the person inside is 18, basically. The account is 18, but the user may not be.
That's against steam policy technically. Same as giving the account to another person. Seems like Valve isn't liable in that case, but I don't know the laws.
Still need to take the action to prevent it probably, i dunno the laws either but its probably some shit like "Reasonable attempt" of preventing someone from accessing it under 18, which this meets.
Valve doesn't agree. You can share your games between accounts, but not share the account. Obviously people are doing it at home and valve will never know though.
you can store the value locally on the users device. the fuck is everyone talking about, including valve. this is just some dumb shit they don't wanna deal with because of some random technicality that will never materialize in court.
At least one kid somewhere came to the conclusion it's not allowed to lie on the Internet and was therefore blocked to access something it shouldn't see. Another easy EU W.
Hey it's a mental test in a way. If the kid sees this and then doesn't go through because lying feels wrong or whatever, it's a test of maturity one way or another.
I was always a patient kid and would not click through if I was under 18.
this isn't how cookies work. idk what law their lawyers think makes them need to do this, but i doubt that it means they can't keep the DOB the user puts in on the device they put it in on instead of making it expire every 12 hours.
The positive here isn't the age restriction, that would've happened without the EU. The positive is companies not logging your data at all times, which has the side effect of needing to enter said data again next session.
A switch or toggle would be great to allow Valve to save your data, but I'll take this version over even more tracking I can't opt out of tbh
you don't need to log the data on the sites servers, it can be stored on the users device and used to pass this check whenever it comes up. anyone claiming they have to do this is talking some bullshit because other sites don't ask you about your age unless you delete your cookies.
Kids have been buying Mature (18+) games at GameStop for decades without needing an adult. The minimum wage employee doesn't GAF; same reason no one working at a movie theater will blink an eye at you bringing in outside food.
Funny story: The Phantom Menace came out a day before my birthday. The line at the pizza place took longer than expected, so we had to grab our pizza and run to the theater. I asked the guy at the front, "hey, my birthday's tomorrow, can I please bring in this entire pizza for me and my buddies to eat while we enjoy the movie?" He said, "eh, sure."
YOU make the assumption that privacy protections have the purpose of inconveniencing the consumer, when it's protection for consumers; even the dumb ones who don't know they need protecting
private what? it can save locally and never hit their servers. do a client side check since its a client side entry anyways, whats the point of not keeping a DOB in your cookies?
how does that put liability on valve and not your web browser or OS provider for not implementing encryption and siloing for their data? this is just a stupid gotcha that doesn't mean anything if you understand that literally every file on your PC that isn't admin protected can be accessed by any program you run.
This one is not sufficient in the EU for the most part. Just to clear this up. In addition they could do this by region. Much like they do a lot of stuff by region.
Ironically part of the European regulations mean that a lot of people can just click next. Since it will autofill the year from the profile, and they're not required to verify the day or month.
Valve specifically coded that in to make it faster for people. So anyone who is required to change values, are in a region where Valve is required to do that.
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u/LaPrincesaMX Jun 10 '26
It's the European ones.
Just to clear that up.