Gifting an age-restricted game to my son. Possible? And other parent/child game issues...

[King_V]

Ok, so, I have a Steam account, and I recently created a Steam account for my son, who has recently turned 8.

I first set up a Yahoo email account for him, which was allowable as Yahoo has a provision to associate a child's email with the parents who give permission for it.

I then created the Steam account for my son. I didn't see anything that stopped me from doing so based on his age. If I recall correctly, I used the Steam client itself to do so, rather than going through the web portal. In fact, I don't recall if it asked for Date Of Birth at all, but don't hold me to that.

I've already purchased 2 kid-friendly games for him, no biggie.

Ok, so there are some games that he cannot see if he does a search on them due to the fact that he is under a particular age. I get that. Also, I have no intention of misrepresenting his age on his account.

Two questions, then:

1) Is there any way I can associate his account and my account, basically stating that I am the parent/guardian and can approve games that by default Steam would NOT allow due to age but I find acceptable (or on the converse, block games he wants that, even if permitted, I might possibly find inappropriate)?

2) Can I purchase a game that he would not be allowed to purchase himself, and give ti as a gift to him?


Thanks in advance.

[Manny ツ]

http://store.steampowered.com/parental/set

Go to Steam tab (at the top in the Steam client) > settings > family > manage family view

Originally posted by King_V:

2) Can I purchase a game that he would not be allowed to purchase himself, and give ti as a gift to him?

Thanks in advance.

I don't see why not.

[Forcen]

There is also this group/forum if you need more help or have ideas, the developers of the feature are in those forums: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/familyoptions

You should also use family sharing, then you can share all the games you own on all accounts on the same PC. http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/ You should still be able to limit the access via the link in the first post.

[King_V]

Thanks to both of you, I will definitely look into the links you provided.

Manny - are you sure? Say, for example, I gifted Borderlands 2 to him? Normally if he tries to look it up from his own account, it will ask for a DOB, and prevent him from viewing the game's page because of his age.

If I purchase it as a gift for him, Steam will let him play it?

While I do know the family sharing part, the only downside to that is when you share out to a family member, you cannot play the games yourself at that point. This works for some games, but would prevent my son and I from playing a LAN game together, which is why I want to be able to purchase some games for him.

One example where age would be the issue is Borderlands/Borderlands 2. He's been watching me play those games for the past few years (interestingly, it actually also helped him learn to read a bit), and while the language is at times an issue, they're cartoonish enough that the violence portion of it doesn't bother me.

[Marble]

Date of birth isn't tied to an account, it's simply asked when trying to view store page or community hub with age-restricted content. If you were to delete your cookies or restart the Steam application, it would have already forgotten the age entered.

There should be no issue in gifting the game.