Actual Age Confirmation so Adults can buy Adult themed games

[Vi-El]

Edit 3: Man if I had known that I get to block so many trolls over the course of 2 days I wouldnt have made a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ suggestion post. Thanks Steam Support for leading me onto a Forum infested with trolls that dont care to have an honest conversation.

Edit 2: To anyone who sees this post, do not engage with users who are not even from germany that try to discuss the german law. These people are trolls who have no intent to actually discuss the problem at hand and understand it. They have been active for 2 years on the very same issue on the very same problem on the very same forum. Save yourself the headache, dont do what I did. Report them, block them, move on with your day.

Edit: If anything this post has taught me a valuable lesson. A lesson about how long it takes to lose faith in any public forum discussion on steam since it seems to be filled with redditors who failed to touch grass.

It also gave me a way to block more people so I guess its evened out at that point. Anyhow, this will be the end of it. One day. Are you guys proud of yourselfs? That you managed to derail a genuine conversation with your own stupidity? Probably, le epic troll right? Yea congrats on being some of the probably worst people online imaginable. I am sure your parents are very proud of you and you have lots of friends. Oh btw, Reddit Karma/Social Credit doesnt mean ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the real world when all you know is based on ♥♥♥♥ you only read online and did maybe 1 hour of research on.

Oh well, who cares. I am out.



So, I have been sitting on this account for quite a few years. So long in fact that this year I turned 30 years old, about 2 months ago in fact and have been quite active in buying games ever since I first logged in.

Now why would this really matter?
Because Germany, my home country where I also still live, simply does not allow me to buy any games that have any form of eventual nudity/pornographic material in it simply because "The kids could buy it".

While I understand the "Why", I am not a kid. I am 30 years old. I could even prove it with a pic of my ID, several other documents, heck lemme send in my active work contract if that is required to prove it. Just let us somehow make it so adults are allowed to buy adult centric content.

I follow multiple artists who recently published games on steam which I cant even hecking see on steam because of my own countries laws in regards to this whole ordeal. Again, I get the "Why". Kids shouldnt be able to buy pornographic material. But then why is there not a way for account holders to mark their accounts as adult? With proper verification of course.

You are losing out on potential customers this way. This makes no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense to me and is frustrating to no end.

[AROCK!!!]

引用自 deneb altair vega：

引用自 ÁROCK!!!：

I doubt they're bots...more than likely just sad little trolls with nothing other than these forums, stupid kids that think they're clever, or just your average piece of garbage person that wasn't raised right.

If i see a post of someone asking for something that will have zero effect on me but be good good them, then my thinking is "good luck, hope it happens".

But to come in here and relentlessly tell them why it's wrong, won't happen and all the other negative nonsense they spew, well...that's just sad.


I once watched a forum on adding a Quick Save in a single player game devolve into several morons going on about how people would "save scum".
The fact that it was a SP game seemed irrelevant to them.

save scumming trivializes the difficulty of games and should never be done. Sure, streamers do it for content because otherwise they might have to repeat a section for 6 hours instead of 10 minutes, in just that case it might be OK if your audience is ok with it, but when playing the game the way it's meant to be played then sometimes you'll have to repeat hour long sessions, save scumming is 100% cheating.

lol.....You're worse than the people crying about others using SAM.

Why do you care what others do in an SP game?


You do realize that most every SP game has cheats and trainers, and that developers often put cheats in that you can activate through the console, yes?

[Start_Running]

引用自 Black Puppet：

It takes me 1 second to take apart all of your guys arguments using nothing but logic. That should mean something to people with more than 2 functioning braincells. You know, people who arent redditors. Alas, here we are.

You mean your attempts at arguments from ignorancce? Yeah no. Those didn't work. As you can see. The base question remains.. Is it worth the now pretty much proven costs associated with it?

That ironically is the one factor you don't seem to be willing to consider that maybe, just maybe, that what people spent on those games wasn't even a blip on the spreadsheet.

Maybe , justmaybe, not that many germans were spending a lot on those games.

We know Valve built a whole client for china because there was proven return on investment there.

maybe they looked at Germany and just decided, it wasn't worth trying to sell them. And when A companty decides not selling is more cost effective than selling. There maybe something worth looking into.

引用自 Gwarsbane：

Lets just say they can get a custom price of 50 cents per check. With a population of Germany being over 84 million people lets say just 10 percent of people use Steam. So that would be around 8.4 million people that would need this system in Germany so around 4.2 million dollars. And I very much doubt its a one time thing.

possibly an annual thing.

引用自 Gwarsbane：

So they have to be make FAR more than 4.2 million dollars from the sale of adult games to make it worth while.

Oh most certainly They'd have to sell more than $4.7 million worth of games. I mean... Valve's cut is only 30% and then you have to remembe r that gets divided across all their other overheads so. yeah...

Issues. If a cheaper alternative crops up.. fione.. hecjk thats an idea for some enterprising German business to find a way to partner with Valve as an affordable middle man.

[Gwarsbane]

ya I meant 4.2/4.7 million with just their 30% cut. So really at a minimum break even of $4.7 million, they would need to sell at least $15.66 million dollars worth of adult/blocked games that they are not allowed to sell now.

And no company is going to spend out millions just to break even.

[Start_Running]

引用自 Gwarsbane：

ya I meant 4.2/4.7 million with just their 30% cut. So really at a minimum break even of $4.7 million, they would need to sell at least $15.66 million dollars worth of adult/blocked games that they are not allowed to sell now.

And no company is going to spend out millions just to break even.

If you spend $10 to make $10 you lost money.

[Acetyl]

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Gwarsbane：

ya I meant 4.2/4.7 million with just their 30% cut. So really at a minimum break even of $4.7 million, they would need to sell at least $15.66 million dollars worth of adult/blocked games that they are not allowed to sell now.

And no company is going to spend out millions just to break even.

If you spend $10 to make $10 you lost money.

You net out zero. There is no loss in the particular domain being measured. This puts the matter out of "risk:benefit" and into "risk:risk", namely risk of doing something vs risk of doing nothing. Simply netting out 0 profit does not imply that the two actions are functionally equivalent. For example it could cause a given user, down the line, to make additional purchases from Steam. This could propagate to their friends Likewise it could cause the inverse, or it could have no statistically significant connection.

So not making an immediate profit is not the only metric, you have broader effects both immediately and downstream. So it becomes a matter of your metric. Some companies are willing to take a hit for a long time if it's serving some part of another goal, most companies however will make projections and see what the expected ROI is over whatever span of time.

[Start_Running]

引用自 Acetyl：

引用自 Start_Running：

If you spend $10 to make $10 you lost money.

You net out zero.

Not because there's this thing as cost of opportunity. You could have done something else with that $10 that would have gained you greater returns.

Or to put it another way. You could have simply kept that $10 in the bank and earned interest on it. As meager as it out be it would still be greater than $0. These are the tricky truthss that dictate business.

引用自 Acetyl：

For example it could cause a given user, down the line, to make additional purchases from Steam. This could propagate to their friends Likewise it could cause the inverse, or it could have no statistically significant connection.

And that could just as easily not be the case. But what Valve can see is what effect the ceasation of those sales has had on their revebnue. They've got a years worth of data on that. And given that Valve doesn't seem to be in a hurry to do anything, it seems that the fuigures tell the story of revenue being mostly unaffected or only beuing nominally affected.

引用自 Acetyl：

So not making an immediate profit is not the only metric, you have broader effects both immediately and downstream.

One must also consider the equal impact of downstream costs.

引用自 Acetyl：

So it becomes a matter of your metric. Some companies are willing to take a hit for a long time if it's serving some part of another goal, most companies however will make projections and see what the expected ROI is over whatever span of time.

YYup and based on their projections, abnnd remember Valve actually has the numbers to work with. We can assume that the current status quo is the result of their analysis of that data.

[Corona Varus]

Teenagers shouldn't learn about those.

My classmates when I was young acts inappropriately to everyone by talking it out to other children and no one bothers to consult or tell him he's doing something unlawfully wrong, he watched inappropriate explicit people do that and turned him that a crazy person.

I agree with OP.

[AROCK!!!]

引用自 Gwarsbane：

For the people that say it costs Valve nothing or very little to do this, from what I can find yes it would cost them money, millions.

Not only for developing and maintaining everything on their end, but also from what I can tell it costs them money to connect up to the system.

(From what I can tell this is one of the places they could contract with, but not sure)
https://ondato.com/plans-pricing/
https://ondato.com/ondato-age-verification-services-approved-germany/

Lets just say they can get a custom price of 50 cents per check. With a population of Germany being over 84 million people lets say just 10 percent of people use Steam. So that would be around 8.4 million people that would need this system in Germany so around 4.2 million dollars. And I very much doubt its a one time thing.

So they have to be make FAR more than 4.2 million dollars from the sale of adult games to make it worth while. My guess is that unless they are making at least twice the costs its just not worth it (again still need to include the cost of development and maintaining the software and hardware its running on because its not going to be a set it up once and forget about it kind of thing.

Even if the 4.2 million was a one time cost, if it takes Valve many years to get it back through the sales of adult games then it just might not be worth it to them, because in those many years time things can and will change.

And yes all this is based on just the sale of adult games (and other games that seem to be blocked by it that shouldn't be) because people can already buy other games and people don't need to verify their age to buy that stuff.

I have no idea how many people are actually on Steam in Germany.
I have no idea how many adult want to buy adult games in Germany. (not every adult wants them)
I have no idea how much Valve has been asked to pay to verify each person.
I have no idea how long the verification is good for and if you have to do it more than once.

BUT we can make educated guesses with all the information we have and the lack of Valve doing anything for years, is information that they just don't think its worth it to them.

It's not just Germany though, there are others countries as well, and not just porn games either

Read a thread about it the other day...can't remember which country exactly, Switzerland maybe or one of the Scandinavian countries, guy was saying that games with loot boxes could not be bought through STEAM because the government labeled loot boxes as gambling and illegal to sell to children.

Then there are the cut games vs. Uncut.
I have quite a few games that are uncut, and they are uncut because I purchased them from other stores, meaning STEAM lost sales, and I am not the only one doing this...not the only one by far.



An account only has to be age verified once, after that there is no longer a need as the account is verified as being owned by someone 18 years old or older.
So it's not like you have to have your age verified on a per purchase basis.

Before i setup my Amazon streaming account I had to show proof of age to the delivery person any time I bought something labeled as 18+ (even though one could clearly see I was much older than 18).
Once I set up the Prime TV and verified my age with my passport I never had to provide proof of age again on anything, and I also have a 4 digit PIN to control content on my Prime TV account.


And there is another option.

STEAM could simply charge a fee to have your account age verified.


Given that there are plenty of businesses, some of them much smaller than Valve, using these systems, I'm pretty sure there are other, cheaper, alternatives.


As it is now, Valve is stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime.



https://www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/germany-video-game-market


https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-10-countries-by-game-revenues

[Gwarsbane]

引用自 ÁROCK!!!：

It's not just Germany though, there are others countries as well, and not just porn games either

And those in those countries have to do exactly the same thing as has been suggested here, convince their country to change laws.

Valve is not going to break laws just so that people can buy adult games in those countries.

If part of the law says a game must have a rating for kids or teens to be sold to kids or teens but it has no rating then again its not upto Valve to give that game a rating. That is up to the developer of the game. If they don't bother submitting their game for a rating then there is nothing Valve can do as they are not legally bound or able to submit it for a rating.

引用自 ÁROCK!!!：

Read a thread about it the other day...can't remember which country exactly, Switzerland maybe or one of the Scandinavian countries, guy was saying that games with loot boxes could not be bought through STEAM because the government labeled loot boxes as gambling and illegal to sell to children.

And thats exactly how it should be, because they are gambling and most countries out there ban kids from being able to gamble.

Again this is not a Steam issue, this is a government law issue. If the people in that country do not agree with the law, then they need to get their law makers to change it. Valve, as a foreign company, can't do anything other than abide by the laws.

引用自 ÁROCK!!!：

Then there are the cut games vs. Uncut.
I have quite a few games that are uncut, and they are uncut because I purchased them from other stores, meaning STEAM lost sales, and I am not the only one doing this...not the only one by far.

The only games Valve has control over at the ones they themselves make. So any developer who made a cut vs uncut version of their game to be able to sell their game in that country made a choice that having some sales was better then having no sales.

Also Valve made a choice a LONG time ago to provide Steam keys for free to developers. Doesn't matter if their game is cut/uncut, if they sell games on Steam, at a certain point they can get a bunch of Steam keys for free to sell on other stores. They used to be able to get them day 1 but because of some massive abuse that was going on they changed it so that they have to have a certain amount of sales on Steam first before they can get keys to sell on another store.

引用自 ÁROCK!!!：

An account only has to be age verified once, after that there is no longer a need as the account is verified as being owned by someone 18 years old or older.
So it's not like you have to have your age verified on a per purchase basis.

Ok, so then they have decided that the initial cost of setting up the system just isn't worth the long term recovery of those costs.

Which tells me they don't sell enough adult based games in Germany to justify setting up this system.

Remember Valve only makes 30% from every game sale. So if costs them 4.7 million to set up, they need to sell at least 15.7 million to break even and breaking even is not enough to justify doing it. They are a business.

If the ROI is 10 years, I doubt they will think its worth it. Specially if there is a chance that in that time anything could change to stop them from getting that ROI.

If it has to be verified yearly, then thats 4.7 million dollars yearly they have to spend and it will only go up over time as more people buy from Steam. Meaning they would have to sell 15.7 million dollars worth of adult games and other games that are blocked just because they don't have a rating yearly just to break even, and again they are not going to do it just to break even, they need to make a good profit from it, so at least twice that is my guess.

引用自 ÁROCK!!!：

And there is another option.

STEAM could simply charge a fee to have your account age verified.

That adds in extra complications accounting wise, and they would still have to pay all that money up front and then slowly get there ROI. It again comes back to how fast will that ROI come in. If its days, sure no problem. If its decades, no reason to bother with it because in that time things will change which will make it so that they have to spend out more money complying with the new laws or ripping it all out.

Again, so far it looks like Valve is not going to bother and that tells us that more then likely its just not worth the headaches or the costs involve because this law has been around a while and even Valve could have had something setup in the days or weeks before the law went live, its not like it just popped into existence one morning.

引用自 ÁROCK!!!：

Given that there are plenty of businesses, some of them much smaller than Valve, using these systems, I'm pretty sure there are other, cheaper, alternatives.

And maybe they have all determined that if they didn't do it, they wouldn't be able to sell in the country at all. Depends on what their main business is.

Valve sells more then enough games that are not blocked in the country to justify not bothering to setup such a system.

[Vi-El]

To anyone who sees this post, do not engage with users who are not even from germany that try to discuss the german law. These people are trolls who have no intent to actually discuss the problem at hand and understand it. They have been active for 2 years on the very same issue on the very same problem on the very same forum. Save yourself the headache, dont do what I did. Report them, block them, move on with your day.

[Brian9824]

引用自 Black Puppet：

To anyone who sees this post, do not engage with users who are not even from germany that try to discuss the german law. These people are trolls who have no intent to actually discuss the problem at hand and understand it. They have been active for 2 years on the very same issue on the very same problem on the very same forum. Save yourself the headache, dont do what I did. Report them, block them, move on with your day.

By that logic you can't post on the steam forums since Steam is an American company and as a German you have no say in what they do.....

There is a reason the forums are open for EVERYONE to discuss, no one is restricted based on their region. This is an old issue, and the answer hasnt changed. Unfortunately people just don't like the answer that Steam doesn't seem to have plans to do anything about Germany's change to their laws.

No one can give you a more definitive answer then Steam is aware of the issue, and they might never do anything to fix it because reasons....

[Zero, Dark Knight]

I think this topic is pretty much done, OP doesn't want to listen to reason or anything which isn't immediate, utter 100% agreement to his point... I mean look at the edit he did to his first post too.
but I'm waiting to hear what Kitt gets back to us with.

[Brian9824]

引用自 Zero, Dark Knight：

I think this topic is pretty much done, OP doesn't want to listen to reason or anything which isn't immediate, utter 100% agreement to his point... I mean look at the edit he did to his first post too.
but I'm waiting to hear what Kitt gets back to us with.

Sadly a classic case of Xenophobia....

I mean its been discussed to death for years and I even linked him the previous discussion. Nothing has changed, and there is nothing new anyone can add

[kitt]

引用自 Zero, Dark Knight：

I think this topic is pretty much done, OP doesn't want to listen to reason or anything which isn't immediate, utter 100% agreement to his point... I mean look at the edit he did to his first post too.
but I'm waiting to hear what Kitt gets back to us with.

Not only are you guys derailing and claiming stuff about german laws and why VALVE doesn't implement a way for adults to buy certain games on their platform i(for germans for example)

No you guys also try to tell people that a topic is done. Who are you? are you a VALVE employee or why you tell people that a topic is done because you dislike the OP opinion while claiming that OP doesn't like what they hear... weird stuff... doing the exact same as you claim the OP doesn.. you guys are so out of touch.. enjoy my block

so far you guys have not given any reason other than "well, it cost money" while you don't even know and just assume stuff while acting like its a fact.

[Brian9824]

引用自 Black Puppet：

We have two people on this post who discuss german law as if they know it only to later say they dont know ♥♥♥♥. Not only dont they know the german law, the german law also only has indirectly anything to do with this post because the law dictates that germans cant buy adult only games because of lacking age verification. THE LATTER BTW IS WHAT THIS POST IS ABOUT if you couldnt tell by them CONSTANTLY DERAILING IT.

Enjoy your block.

Feel free to block anyone you wish, its a common tactic when you know you've lost an argument and can't win.

Already linked you to the previous thread, its not just adult games, its any game that is unrated which includes mature games that are not classified as an adult game.

Also the german law has nothing to do with the answers given to you repeatedly and in the previously linked threads on steam's response. Nothing has changed since the previous discussions.

Again feel free to read - https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/1753525962484005680/