Question about underage players

[Hardcore Johnny]

Fellas, I was playing payday 2 and met a kid who said he was 12 and had been playing payday 2 since he was 9. Is he allowed to play payday or is he going to get banned? I’m just worried for the kid that some weirdos will get to him eventually.

[Sunday Driver]

Well if weirdos get him or not that's sadly up to the parents who want to use Steam as a babysitter and homeschooling platform. There would be no ban other than on an individual basis by each host if those people get annoyed or disturbed by playing with said kid. Otherwise it's up to fate and RNG. The parents are obviously buying these games as I doubt a 9 year old has a job and payment processor of their own. It is not up to Steam or Overkill to act in the substitute parental role either.

If someone walks up to your PC with Steam active then anyone with access to the PC can play it at that point.

[Hardcore Johnny]

I doubt he will have any issues though, he is very careful and knows about internet safety. His parents give him a VPN subscription just in case.

[Hardcore Johnny]

And he actually sells prime at his school, he made 15 bucks today. So he actually has a small business. He’s going to open an Etsy and sell Jimmy masks. He’s really good at making money.

[BoPoe]

Normally it's wrong and some companies used to ban their users for being underage but nowadays players doesn't get punished for the game's ratings. TF2 for example, a game that is M rated, but nobody stops young children to play it. And at this point i don't think any company bans accounts for having underage users, if that was the case most popular social medias wouldn't be as popular as it is today.

[O_T]

It's a case of "it's the other's problem/fault" and in my eyes a big problem with Steam as platform. In theory a registration for Steam isn't allowed with age less 13 but there isn't a real check. The games have age restrictions and in the developer's eyes, every user that is allowed by the system to buy the game, must be old enough for the restrictions. On the other side Steam says they can't guarantee the correct age and that Steam provides just the platform, while the content is completely the developers responsibility.
It's even possible to sell a game with wrong age restrictions and Steam doesn't care because "only the developer is responsible for his content".

[Hardcore Johnny]

It is pretty messed up, if people just wouldn’t be into that in appropriate stuff, you can check my search history, never in my life have I searched anything bad. If people would just be cool with kids then everyone can enjoy a game without needing to be supervised or be nervous about who they play with. Some really have to make age an insult or say it’s “just a number”, but it’s far beyond that.

[Sunday Driver]

Originally posted by O_T:

It's a case of "it's the other's problem/fault" and in my eyes a big problem with Steam as platform. In theory a registration for Steam isn't allowed with age less 13 but there isn't a real check. The games have age restrictions and in the developer's eyes, every user that is allowed by the system to buy the game, must be old enough for the restrictions. On the other side Steam says they can't guarantee the correct age and that Steam provides just the platform, while the content is completely the developers responsibility.
It's even possible to sell a game with wrong age restrictions and Steam doesn't care because "only the developer is responsible for his content".

The age check thing you can literally choose to be 90+ one day and 21 years old the next just with these drop down check things. Do people really bother to carefully put in the day and month of their birth too? It's completely useless fig leaf for the legal requirements and comes into the "don't ask don't tell" territory where we all have to pretend it really works and we all totally do it right every time to keep the illusion up.

Originally posted by Jimmy the cocaine warrior!:

It is pretty messed up, if people just wouldn’t be into that in appropriate stuff, you can check my search history, never in my life have I searched anything bad. If people would just be cool with kids then everyone can enjoy a game without needing to be supervised or be nervous about who they play with. Some really have to make age an insult or say it’s “just a number”, but it’s far beyond that.

You say that but there's the other side of the coin where people of certain ages don't want children in that space or have to accommodate children in their ages spaces and enjoy a more mature atmosphere away from the fortnite kids. It's nice to have adult only areas for us to relax in without some 9 year old kid being allowed to barge in inappropriately and explicitly against the rules. It completely changes the atmosphere if some kid is squatting where they are not meant to be.

The old "he/she is mature for his/her age" is just BS and used too often by creepers and neglectful people who hyperfocus on something cheap like an entertainment property they personally want instead of the larger picture and ignores the reality. It's why we have all these laws regarding ages and what is and isn't appropriate in the first place.

[Nighthawk]

Such a thing usually depends on local laws and is usually expected of the parents to enforce and monitor what content their child is consuming. If you are concerned you are welcome to report the account directly to valve via the flag icon on their profile. I think they changed where it is depending on if you are on the beta version or not but it's somewhere in the upper right.

As for if weirdos will get to them, using a VPN and never taking communications outside the game as well as never discussing personal info is going to be anyone's best bet to maintain privacy.

Since this subject is somewhat dubious in nature and will likely get someone banned for saying something unnecessary, we'll lock it.