Valve caved to UK online safety act, proof of valid UK credit card now required to access mature game communities?

[Diamond Falcon]

So i just noticed when trying to access a store page for a hentai game, it came up up " sorry this community hub is not available in your region", then when i tried to access the store page, it came up with this message:

"The UK online safety act requires you to provide proof that you are over the age of 18 by providing an active UK credit card to your account then then changing the store preferences afterwards."

if so then valve i understand your under pressure, but this sadly comes off as a censorship L if true.

To anyone in the united kingdom, i need you guys to check to see if this is the case by trying to access any adult games on the steam store, any games like hentai games just to be sure.

[Ogami]

Welcome to the club. We here in Germany could not access any adult game store page for nearly 3 years now since the German government requires an secure age verification system that Steam did not want to implement.

[✨Saint✨]

For what I know, it is called the age verification law in the UK. You can find plenty of information about it.

[Craig]

News flash... To do business in a country you have to follow their laws.

Elections have consequences. We need to come together globally and shame not just the people that vote for politicans and policy like this, but more importantly shame the parents who refuse to raise their own children. These problems start and are justified with "the children". Even if the deeper reason is more sinister. Parents letting their children have unrestricted internet access or letting the devices raise their children are why we are in this mess.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by Diamond Falcon:

So i just noticed when trying to access a store page for a hentai game, it came up up " sorry this community hub is not available in your region", then when i tried to access the store page, it came up with this message:

"The UK online safety act requires you to provide proof that you are over the age of 18 by providing an active UK credit card to your account then then changing the store preferences afterwards."

if so then valve i understand your under pressure, but this sadly comes off as a censorship L if true.

To anyone in the united kingdom, i need you guys to check to see if this is the case by trying to access any adult games on the steam store, any games like hentai games just to be sure.

Wait.

So they just want a credit card? That's pretty standard.

[Rob The Robot Guard]

From my testing if you own the game and have a card tied to your account you can still see the community hubs for NSFW games.

If you don’t own the game your not able to see the community hubs but the store pages are visible.

At least it’s not ID verification that’s far worse.
I not exactly sure how card based ID verification works since from what I know a card transaction does not transmit your Date of birth.

We already add our cards to our stream accounts so this change for some may not even notice this change.


Still overall this change is bad for internet freedom.

[Rob The Robot Guard]

Also even using a debit card works in allowing access to these games

Edit: This is no longer the case. Likely a bug

[datCookie]

Valve havent "caved" to anything, they are required to abide by all laws in each country they do business in.

[miakisfan]

Originally posted by Craig:

News flash... To do business in a country you have to follow their laws.

Elections have consequences. We need to come together globally and shame not just the people that vote for politicans and policy like this, but more importantly shame the parents who refuse to raise their own children. These problems start and are justified with "the children". Even if the deeper reason is more sinister. Parents letting their children have unrestricted internet access or letting the devices raise their children are why we are in this mess.

Why do you think I spend the little time I do here partially warning people not to vote for Liberals? They are the ones that started this crap.

I'll tell you what, though. I saw it was a Conservative Senator pushing this in the U.S. and she had the balls to say today she's running for Governor of her state after this term.

If it gets passed here I'll make sure to push against her. She should be knowing better about this. It is a disgrace in any case.

The people who should really be punished for this are the parents not paying attention to what their children are doing online.

At this point in time I'd rather just see the under 18 crowd not get internet access at all instead of punishing all of us for the foolish acts of a minority of people.

[Diamond Falcon]

Originally posted by Rob The Robot Guard:

From my testing if you own the game and have a card tied to your account you can still see the community hubs for NSFW games.

If you don’t own the game your not able to see the community hubs but the store pages are visible.

At least it’s not ID verification that’s far worse.
I not exactly sure how card based ID verification works since from what I know a card transaction does not transmit your Date of birth.

We already add our cards to our stream accounts so this change for some may not even notice this change.


Still overall this change is bad for internet freedom.

Ah well i wasn't able to see the store pages due to the block message popping up.

I don't tie my cards to any online system if i can help it as part of cyber security principles.

And yeah i fully agree it's certainly a kick in the nuts, but as you said, at least it's not as bad as the dox yourself method of facial scans, i mean even microsoft outlook is now heavily promoting facial scanning as a password option and im like yeah no thanks...

but thank you for your checking to help verify whats happening.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by Boblin the Goblin:

So they just want a credit card? That's pretty standard.

Yeah, if Valve were following the letter of that law, they'd be wanting far more personal information and / or collecting facial photographs. So, OP should take the W and stop complaining.

Originally posted by datCookie:

Valve havent "caved" to anything, they are required to abide by all laws in each country they do business in.

Except, they actually don't. There are at least two things Valve are doing that technically violate Japanese law. One thing in particular could see Valve paying huge fines and losing the right to trade in the region for six months, minimum. But as I believe that specific law is stupidly outdated, I won't be going into details. The second thing, is that for any game with a CERO Z rating, Valve should be only allowing the purchases thereof with a valid Japanese credit card for age verification purposes. Wallet funds and other non-credit card payments should not be accepted for those titles. Maybe now they have this system in place for the UK, it's only a matter of time before they at least follow that law here. But we'll see...

[Diamond Falcon]

Originally posted by miakisfan:

Originally posted by Craig:

News flash... To do business in a country you have to follow their laws.

Elections have consequences. We need to come together globally and shame not just the people that vote for politicans and policy like this, but more importantly shame the parents who refuse to raise their own children. These problems start and are justified with "the children". Even if the deeper reason is more sinister. Parents letting their children have unrestricted internet access or letting the devices raise their children are why we are in this mess.

Why do you think I spend the little time I do here partially warning people not to vote for Liberals? They are the ones that started this crap.

I'll tell you what, though. I saw it was a Conservative Senator pushing this in the U.S. and she had the balls to say today she's running for Governor of her state after this term.

If it gets passed here I'll make sure to push against her. She should be knowing better about this. It is a disgrace in any case.

The people who should really be punished for this are the parents not paying attention to what their children are doing online.

At this point in time I'd rather just see the under 18 crowd not get internet access at all instead of punishing all of us for the foolish acts of a minority of people.

As you have clearly mentioned, its not only politicians pushing these censorship narratives, its also lax parenting and parents demanding governments do their job for them raising kids, which leads them to manipulating their children against their own parents...

Also i've never understood why the push to have children on the internet to begin with, the internet is not for children full stop. and yet here we are...

but then again they want web 2.0 dead and the eventual web 3.0 to be the family friendly sanitised safe space for everyone..so maybe thats why the ardent push...

[Chaosolous]

"Caved"

You mean, followed the law as it's required.

Ya'll voted for it. What did you want Steam to do? Break the law?

Next time you vote, specifically vote for people who will repeal it.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

"Caved"

You mean, followed the law as it's required.

Ya'll voted for it. What did you want Steam to do? Break the law?

Next time you vote, specifically vote for people who will repeal it.

This^.

[Dodece]

Originally posted by miakisfan:

Originally posted by Craig:

News flash... To do business in a country you have to follow their laws.

Elections have consequences. We need to come together globally and shame not just the people that vote for politicans and policy like this, but more importantly shame the parents who refuse to raise their own children. These problems start and are justified with "the children". Even if the deeper reason is more sinister. Parents letting their children have unrestricted internet access or letting the devices raise their children are why we are in this mess.

Why do you think I spend the little time I do here partially warning people not to vote for Liberals? They are the ones that started this crap.

I'll tell you what, though. I saw it was a Conservative Senator pushing this in the U.S. and she had the balls to say today she's running for Governor of her state after this term.

If it gets passed here I'll make sure to push against her. She should be knowing better about this. It is a disgrace in any case.

The people who should really be punished for this are the parents not paying attention to what their children are doing online.

At this point in time I'd rather just see the under 18 crowd not get internet access at all instead of punishing all of us for the foolish acts of a minority of people.

You're confusing liberals with progressives. Politics make for some strange bedfellows. Folks also get conservatives mixed up too. A fiscal conservative can be about balancing the budget, and be in favor of burning the church down with people inside.

Being a conservative doesn't mean being Christian. Anymore then being liberal means pro nanny state. The problem is Progressives and Social Conservatives are running riot, and have too much power in their respective caucuses.

And for the purposes of this conversation. They strongly agree on child safety laws. Remember social conservatives came up with political correctness. They have never been keen on things like free speech.

You know what most liberals would consider major policy victories. Gays getting the right to get married. People being free to get stoned off their butt on weed, and the passage of death with dignity laws. You think the pro orgy people have issues with pornography?

[peppermint hollows]

Originally posted by Dodece:

You're confusing liberals with progressives. Politics make for some strange bedfellows. Folks also get conservatives mixed up too. A fiscal conservative can be about balancing the budget, and be in favor of burning the church down with people inside.

Being a conservative doesn't mean being Christian. Anymore then being liberal means pro nanny state. The problem is Progressives and Social Conservatives are running riot, and have too much power in their respective caucuses.

And for the purposes of this conversation. They strongly agree on child safety laws. Remember social conservatives came up with political correctness. They have never been keen on things like free speech.

You know what most liberals would consider major policy victories. Gays getting the right to get married. People being free to get stoned off their butt on weed, and the passage of death with dignity laws. You think the pro orgy people have issues with pornography?

Waste of time. That guy only replies to threads once and never again, he just posts nonsense to complain about The Libs™. Not even sure if it's a real person or a satire account the way he types sometimes.