Create a “remember my age” option

[agnosticaphid]

It’s New Year’s Day, and that means it’s probably the birthday of most of us (because who takes the time to change the day and month on the age verification?).

I think Valve should create a “remember my age” button that we can click to not have to input our age every time in the store. There are many reasons to do so:

1. It’s just annoying and tedious to input my date of birth. When I encounter and must respond to the age confirmation screen, I don’t think “Steam is so useful” or “man I love saving money on Steam sales” or “Steam is really good at UI” or even just like feel neutrally about Steam, I am annoyed. Every time.

2. The current setup is bad for sales. There are quite a few times that I just don’t bother to input my DOB, especially if it is for a product in the discovery queue or something else I randomly stumbled upon. Between all of the people using Steam, even if only like 1% or less of store page views results in a sale, that is a whole lot of money that Valve is leaving on the table due to people being too annoyed to look at a game’s page.

3. Because of (1) and (2) when combined with the fact that Steam has a huge part (most?) of the PC games market, it discourages the development of mature, adult-appropriate, non-sexual content. Clearly age verification requirements aren’t going to stop someone from making a sexually explicit game, but it is lame enough that the ESRB rating systems cause developers to think twice about whether they want their game to be “mature,” without Steam’s annoying and unnecessary “let’s make people jump through an extra hoop just to look at a store page.”

4. The store actively mocks your inability to disable it, which is absurd. The age verification page says “Your preferences are configured to warn you about this kind of mature content,” and then links “edit preferences,” but the only preference you can actually change is to simply remove all “mature content” from the store completely. There’s no option to disable the warning. Exactly why is the store taunting its customers about how annoying the store’s features are?

To forestall the inevitable objections:

1. “Use the search feature.” I actually did look through the first few pages of posts. But more importantly, this is a suggestions forum, so I think it’s good to point out this is a recurring problem. Also, using old threads prompts accusations of necro-ing.

2. “Think of the children!!” This is a red herring. The current setup does nothing to actually solve whatever “problem” exists in this respect other than (theoretically) allow Valve to blame children for lying about their age. There’s no actual verification of anything, nor is there any attempt to choose a self-verification option that stumps children. If there is some kind of actual issue in this regard (which I doubt, see below), Valve should do something real, like create Kid profiles, or include parental controls, or something else that actually works. To put up a screen that says “HERES SOMETHING COOL THAT CHILDREN DEFINITELY CAN’T LOOK AT, BUT YOU BETTER REALLY PROMISE YOU AREN’T A KID” and then just say, “omg, it’s the kids’ fault for lying about their ages!” is not only legally dubious, it’s morally reprehensible. We are talking about children. . Of course they are going to want to see what’s on the other side of the verification page. Finally, even leaving Valve aside, parents concerned about their kids’ media usage shouldn’t just be leaving unrestricted computer accounts lying around unprotected.

3. “It’s legally required.” This is wrong as well. First, while the ESRB rules are mostly voluntary, it is true that in some states stores could get in trouble for selling “mature” games to children. But we aren’t talking about actually selling the games, we’re talking about looking at the store page. Second, even assuming it actually is illegal for kids to look at advertisements for “mature” games, the current setup doesn’t actually do anything to accomplish this, as noted above. The “type it in every time” scheme is not effective to stop kids, and it is just pointlessly obnoxious for adults. It would be so much better to divide access by account type than by tedious-and-easily-defeated checkbox.

4. “I don’t want Valve to remember my date of birth.” Fine — that’s why it would be good to make seeing these games an account preference, just the way the verification screen misleadingly suggests. I have faith in Valve’s ability to achieve this minor UI change if it actually wants to.

5. “You just spent more time complaining about this than you ever will in filling out your date of birth.” Probably true, but that is my choice.

In conclusion, the store page verification system is the worst and really needs to be reconsidered.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

I'll give you the full copy/pasta now...

Please use the search. Seriously, my copy/pasta from the last 1,000 threads...

Age is set by cookies. If you have to enter the date again, you are deleting Steam's cookies.

(This is about all warnings like the one for the game hub and age gates) Last stage check (View Page button) will never be set.

Been asked soooooo many times that Valve even made a Q&A for it...

Q: Why do you KEEP asking my damn age throughout the store?

A: We're with you on this. Unfortunately, many rating agencies have rules that stipulate that we cannot save your age for longer than a single browsing session. It's frustrating, but know we're filling out those age gates too.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1708442022337025126

[agnosticaphid]

Well, you’ll see that there are several pre-emptive responses to that when you read my post, but for now I’ll just say that there are other solutions I mention, like account preferences, that solve that problem.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by agnosticaphid:

Well, you’ll see that there are several pre-emptive responses to that when you read my post, but for now I’ll just say that there are other solutions I mention, like account preferences, that solve that problem.

Nope. Read why above.

[agnosticaphid]

Have you heard of this service called “Netflix”? They have childrens’ accounts. As I mentioned, Valve’s age verification strategy doesn’t actually accomplish anything as far as protecting kids from mature content goes. As I said, it’s just a scheme Valve uses to blame kids for being attracted to restricted content.

[B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t]

If you want to get around the age gate or not see it browse the store on a browser with an add-on that does this.

[FFL2and3rocks]

It's not supposed to "accomplish anything" other than preventing you from taking them to court. It's the bare minimum to protect themselves because your child would have to lie about their age to view adult content.

[[?]legit]

We definitely need such a feature. I don't want to click and confirm all the time that I'm over 18. That is very annoying.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by agnosticaphid:

Have you heard of this service called “Netflix”? They have childrens’ accounts. As I mentioned, Valve’s age verification strategy doesn’t actually accomplish anything as far as protecting kids from mature content goes. As I said, it’s just a scheme Valve uses to blame kids for being attracted to restricted content.

Netflix isn't SELLING you items. The laws are different. Its required by law to ask during every browsing session. It's as simple as that.

[Washell]

Originally posted by agnosticaphid:

Have you heard of this service called “Netflix”?

Read it again, mentally insert *game* before "rating agencies", and then ask yourself what Netflix peddles and why it obviously doesn't apply to them.

Q: Why do you KEEP asking my damn age throughout the store?

A: We're with you on this. Unfortunately, many rating agencies have rules that stipulate that we cannot save your age for longer than a single browsing session. It's frustrating, but know we're filling out those age gates too.

Originally posted by brian9824:

Netflix isn't SELLING you items.

It has nothing to do with selling. Which is rather obvious since free to play games are age-gated too.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Washell:

Originally posted by agnosticaphid:

Have you heard of this service called “Netflix”?

Read it again, mentally insert *game* before "rating agencies", and then ask yourself what Netflix peddles and why it obviously doesn't apply to them.

Q: Why do you KEEP asking my damn age throughout the store?

A: We're with you on this. Unfortunately, many rating agencies have rules that stipulate that we cannot save your age for longer than a single browsing session. It's frustrating, but know we're filling out those age gates too.

Originally posted by brian9824:

Netflix isn't SELLING you items.

It has nothing to do with selling. Which is rather obvious since free to play games are age-gated too.

Even F2P games are still sold, just sold for free. It forms a contract, your given a license, etc. It's different then streaming a show.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by agnosticaphid:

Have you heard of this service called “Netflix”? They have childrens’ accounts. As I mentioned, Valve’s age verification strategy doesn’t actually accomplish anything as far as protecting kids from mature content goes. As I said, it’s just a scheme Valve uses to blame kids for being attracted to restricted content.

Games are rated by the ESRB in the US. Movies have a different rating board and different rules. Both are ran by their own industry.

[agnosticaphid]

They don’t want to have to implement a system that checks ages before you buy, so instead they have this dumb ineffective age gate for every store page that they claim is necessary when it isn’t. This way Valve (and its fanboys) can blame children for their curiosity, ratings agencies for their rules, and customers for their annoyance. All convenient ways of not blaming themselves. But that doesn’t make it actually true that what they’re doing now is “required.” Even leaving aside how the ESRB doesn’t actually have the force of law, in all the endless virtual ink spilled on this issue, there’s never been any evidence that it is illegal for minors to view advertisements for games rated “mature.”

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by agnosticaphid:

They don’t want to have to implement a system that checks ages before you buy, so instead they have this dumb ineffective age gate for every store page. This way they can blame children and ratings agencies instead of themselves. But that doesn’t make it actually true that what they’re doing now is “required.” Even leaving aside how the ESRB doesn’t actually have the force of law, in all the endless virtual ink spilled on this issue, there’s never been any evidence that it is illegal for minors to view advertisements for games rated “mature.”

No one said illegal as that would require laws.

The ESRB was created to self govern the industry. If it was not, then the government was going to step in and actually make laws for the industry.

The ESRB was created to deal with issues people had with content and and how it was accessed by people.

https://www.esrb.org/

You are free to read their agreements and FAQs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Rating_Board

As well as a bit of their history.

But Valve does have to comply with them, in order to use the ESRB logo, especially as there are many games on Steam that use the ratings and logo. With out it, developer (per their agreement with ESRB) may not be able to sell their games on Steam.

[agnosticaphid]

So again.... no actual indication that the ESRB ratings force Valve to hide advertisements for Mature games from kids.

Nobody is disputing that they can’t actually sell the games.... but it is Valve that chooses to create an age gate for the Store Page rather than the actual sale — and one that is ineffective and stupid and bad for business and morally blameworthy in all of the ways I explained.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by agnosticaphid:

So again.... no actual indication that the ESRB ratings force Valve to hide advertisements for Mature games from kids.

I suggest reading the information provided.

Originally posted by agnosticaphid:

Nobody is disputing that they can’t actually sell the games.... but it is Valve that chooses to create an age gate for the Store Page rather than the actual sale — and one that is ineffective and stupid and bad for business and morally blameworthy in all of the ways I explained.

You don't have to believe it if you don't want to, but the information is there.

You are free to not read it, just as you are free to read it. In the end, Valve knows their obligations far better then you or I.

Either way, seem you just want to repeat yourself over and over, so I'll lock this up.