German Store Restrictions - We Need a Better Solution

[flyomotive]

I'm writing as a dedicated Steam user of over 10 years, with more than 1000 games and several thousands of Euros spent on the platform.

Steam has always been my go-to platform for gaming - it's user-friendly, innovative, and has consistently put users first. However, this month an incredibly frustrating situation has come about in regards to German regulations and Steam's missing age verification system:

Recently, a significant number of games have become completely inaccessible in the German Steam store due to missing age ratings. This affects both upcoming releases many have been excited about, like Subnautica 2 to name only one example, as well as recently released titles like Flight of Nova, an impressive space flight sim that I can no longer even view in the store. Even beloved older titles like Animal Super Squad and The Banner Saga have disappeared. Given that their developers already had months to fill out the Age Rating survey, it's unlikely that it will happen at all for lots of such games.

What's particularly concerning is that smaller and older games are disproportionately affected - and these are often the titles where Steam is the only platform to play them! The inability to even discover which games are affected, as they're completely removed from view, makes this situation even more frustrating.

While I understand that Valve is forced to comply with the short-sighted German regulations, the current implementation feels overly restrictive, especially given the robust age verification infrastructure already available in Germany and the EU (digital ID, passport, Postident, etc.).

It's worth noting that Steam has previously faced fines for breaching EU geo-blocking regulations (Regulation 2018/302), though I understand this is a complex situation.

Many of us would gladly verify our age through any of these established methods to regain access to the full Steam store.

Questions for Valve:

- Are there plans to implement an age verification solution?
- Could you share any timeline for addressing these issues?
- Is there any way for users to help expedite this process or verify their age on an individual basis?

Right now, many of us are forced to use other platforms just to stay informed about games, browse an uncensored storefront, track wishlisted games, and buy and play older games - something that is impossible for Steam-exclusive titles. There has got to be a better solution.

Thanks for your concern.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by flyomotive:

Originally posted by Sazzouu:

Just to leave my two cents as a long term collector:

Lots of developer studios shut down or the people in charge deceased but their products remain on Steam ever since. These games will forever be gone for Germany now.

So this whole topic is not just about „developers only need to label their games propperly“ but it is a topic about a general necessity for a proper age verifictation system which was due very long time ago. Not only for Germany but for literally any country with regulations of some sort based on age - which are more than one might think.

On average for the past 10 years I‘ve been spending roughly $1000 per sale. This winter will probably be the very first time the sale starts with an amount X of money and ends with the exact same amount X. Not because there is nothing to buy anymore but this year is the very first year Valve actively decided to go the profitable anti-consumer route rather than standing up for their users since I‘ve been using this plattform.

Thank you! This is my perspective as well.
Valve has always been a company to make smart business decisions that make sense financially and also build customer goodwill: Steam Deck, Proton, Refunds, Very fast download servers..

Their (apparent) choice NOT to seek a solution for age verification - which would not be hard, in the EU the ID APIs are open to implement - seems to go against both directions: anti-user and questionable business-wise. It erodes trust and degrades the shopping experience for a large chunk of the customer base.

Valve already provides a free age rating system. It's the publishers that need to choose to use it and the country/region that needs to choose to accept it (rather than force additional payment for a different rating system)

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/4678768276768588864

https://partner.steamgames.com/?goto=%2Fhealthcheck%2Fmissingratingforgermany%2F

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/contentsurvey/germany

Kind of silly to be mad at Valve when they already provide the tools needed to comply.

Your game cannot receive a content review rating from Valve if you have not filled in the game's content survey.

[flyomotive]

@Kunovega

1 post up:

Guys, please remember that you absolutely DO NOT NEED to pay anything to get your game available in Germany. Filling out the free survey is enough. Most games don't have an USK rating and they do not need one. The problem is that not every developer can and will fill out that survey. The problem affects: New and unreleased games, older and/or indie games with inactive developer/publisher. And just looking at my wishlist and how much is greyed out, that is actually A LOT of games, way more than I would have thought.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by flyomotive:

@Kunovega

1 post up:

Guys, please remember that you absolutely DO NOT NEED to pay anything to get your game available in Germany. Filling out the free survey is enough. Most games don't have an USK rating and they do not need one. The problem is that not every developer can and will fill out that survey. The problem affects: New and unreleased games, older and/or indie games with inactive developer/publisher. And just looking at my wishlist and how much is greyed out, that is actually A LOT of games, way more than I would have thought.

There's over 40,000 games on steam, do you expect Valve to be able to fill out the surveys themselves? It's up to each publisher to do that.

Blame Germany for the stupid legal change, Valve already supplies everything needed to comply if a publisher wants to.

[flyomotive]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Originally posted by flyomotive:

@Kunovega

1 post up:

Guys, please remember that you absolutely DO NOT NEED to pay anything to get your game available in Germany. Filling out the free survey is enough. Most games don't have an USK rating and they do not need one. The problem is that not every developer can and will fill out that survey. The problem affects: New and unreleased games, older and/or indie games with inactive developer/publisher. And just looking at my wishlist and how much is greyed out, that is actually A LOT of games, way more than I would have thought.

There's over 40,000 games on steam, do you expect Valve to be able to fill out the surveys themselves? It's up to each publisher to do that.

Blame Germany for the stupid legal change, Valve already supplies everything needed to comply if a publisher wants to.

Where did I say that Valve should fill out that survey themselves? They legally cannot do that. Have you read my post at all before responding?

Valve should consider implementing a way to verify your age. That would solve this issue and that of games on the Index. It would not be prohibitively hard to do that. That's what my post is about.

And I am blaming Germany, but a solution will have to come from Valve, unfortunately.

[Dan5000]

I have no idea how expensive it would be to implement certain things, but personally I'd be fine with doing an online ID check, as I've done with other things already, to confirm that I am an adult and can use/buy everything I want to. That would definitely work.

[flyomotive]

Originally posted by Dan5000:

I have no idea how expensive it would be to implement certain things, but personally I'd be fine with doing an online ID check, as I've done with other things already, to confirm that I am an adult and can use/buy everything I want to. That would definitely work.

They could offer Postident or another third party service and have the user pay the difference. Maybe refund to Steam Wallet so it stays in their system. Of course, there would still be administrative overhead and implementation cost for Valve. But anything would be better than doing nothing, even a paid verification service.

There is a silver lining: In 2026, a harmonized digital identity will go live in the EU, which will make this sort of thing even easier. Maybe they are waiting for that instead of implementing something now. I could understand that decision.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Originally posted by flyomotive:

Originally posted by Dan5000:

I have no idea how expensive it would be to implement certain things, but personally I'd be fine with doing an online ID check, as I've done with other things already, to confirm that I am an adult and can use/buy everything I want to. That would definitely work.

They could offer Postident or another third party service and have the user pay the difference. Maybe refund to Steam Wallet so it stays in their system. Of course, there would still be administrative overhead and implementation cost for Valve. But anything would be better than doing nothing, even a paid verification service.

There is a silver lining: In 2026, a harmonized digital identity will go live in the EU, which will make this sort of thing even easier. Maybe they are waiting for that instead of implementing something now. I could understand that decision.

Fix your stupid lawmakers and their brilliant ideas. Valve is NOT the root cause of this problem.

[Dan5000]

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

Originally posted by flyomotive:

They could offer Postident or another third party service and have the user pay the difference. Maybe refund to Steam Wallet so it stays in their system. Of course, there would still be administrative overhead and implementation cost for Valve. But anything would be better than doing nothing, even a paid verification service.

There is a silver lining: In 2026, a harmonized digital identity will go live in the EU, which will make this sort of thing even easier. Maybe they are waiting for that instead of implementing something now. I could understand that decision.

Fix your stupid lawmakers and their brilliant ideas. Valve is NOT the root cause of this problem.

Can't really fix the people in charge, if all of the choices are bad. They do have differences here and there, but overall none of them feel like the right choice.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Originally posted by Dan5000:

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

Fix your stupid lawmakers and their brilliant ideas. Valve is NOT the root cause of this problem.

Can't really fix the people in charge, if all of the choices are bad. They do have differences here and there, but overall none of them feel like the right choice.

Im from NJ. I very much understand.

[flyomotive]

Most importantly, none of them (except Pirate Party maybe, who is sadly irrelevant) care even a tiny bit about this issue. If anything they want more restrictions. Expecting a change there is unrealistic.

So I appeal to Valve as the only party likely to listen. I care about Steam (it is the best games platform) and want it to be a good experience in Germany.

[sharien (he/him)]

Originally posted by AROCK!!!:

Valve only cares about money, so until they start losing enough to notice, nothing will happen.
And BTW, if STEAM actually did, as you say, "consistently put users first", this issue would not, not would it ever had existed.

In the meantime, you can get keys from numerous sites, and you can also order games from outside Germany, which is completely legal.
Even if a game is indexed, it is still legal to own and play, it's just not legal to sell it here.

I used to buy from a store in the UK.


The law governing this is not, "short sighted", it's there to protect the youth. Hundreds of other stores manage to implement an age verification, even small businesses, so Valve not doing it is simply because they do not care about us...until as I said, they see they are losing money, then Valve will do something, but it will be because of money, not the customers.

okay just no - indexed does not mean its not legal to sell in germany... i means that its not legal to display and advertise as well as requiring verification of your age to buy it... you could still go into a shop and specifically ask for the game and buy it
THAT is the actual legal situation... but with online stores that essentially means that they cant sell, because there is no one to ask for the game or verify your age to... its not illegal to sell, its impossible with the way they chose to build the store

and on buying keys from numerous sites... oh yeah cool ill go to key resellers where a large chunk of the keys being sold are the result of scammers and credit card theft
good advice

and genuinely im sick of the age old "but wont someone please think of the children" line - no its not... this has absolutely no effect on what children can and will do - teenagers especially are the most likely to just pirate anything interesting they cant otherwise get access to, because the consequences are minimal and they generally dont have much in the way of income anyway - its their parents who are being locked out of buying or even seeing the stuff, especially when they are not immersed in whats going on in the gaming world anyway
that line of "just protecting the children" has been trumpeted over and over from those on the right who just want to censor things they dont want anyone to see

[sharien (he/him)]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Originally posted by flyomotive:

Thank you! This is my perspective as well.
Valve has always been a company to make smart business decisions that make sense financially and also build customer goodwill: Steam Deck, Proton, Refunds, Very fast download servers..

Their (apparent) choice NOT to seek a solution for age verification - which would not be hard, in the EU the ID APIs are open to implement - seems to go against both directions: anti-user and questionable business-wise. It erodes trust and degrades the shopping experience for a large chunk of the customer base.

Valve already provides a free age rating system. It's the publishers that need to choose to use it and the country/region that needs to choose to accept it (rather than force additional payment for a different rating system)

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/4678768276768588864

https://partner.steamgames.com/?goto=%2Fhealthcheck%2Fmissingratingforgermany%2F

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/contentsurvey/germany

Kind of silly to be mad at Valve when they already provide the tools needed to comply.

Your game cannot receive a content review rating from Valve if you have not filled in the game's content survey.

ive been mad at valve for this for a long time before this recent mess - theres plenty games i legally should be able to buy, but steam is blocking me from doing so, because im german
i would be happy to jump through hoops to verify my age for the account, so i dont face those blocks anymore... but valve has been sitting on this issue for decades
this is not a new issue... its just an old issue that just got WAY worse

[Sazzouu]

Originally posted by Devil Daughter:

How is Valve supposed to solve this?

You want them to ignore German law and leave the games up for sale?

Nope. From a business perspective Valve did exactly what any business would've done. And it does in fact meet every law that had to be addressed.

However. Electronic IDs is far from being a new concept. Electronical card readers to read out your electronical ID is more and more common and it is actually actively used by many services already. Most of them are combined under the hood of the so called BundID but there are many "third party" services using your electronical ID for actual age verification.

More than that:
The government actually provides some sort of API (if you wish to call it that way) to have access to that verification system SPECIFICALLY designed for that very purpose.

https://www.personalausweisportal.de/Webs/PA/DE/wirtschaft/diensteanbieter-werden/einsatzmoeglichkeiten/einsatzmoeglichkeiten-node.html;jsessionid=5697531D94BE4F99C7AE0D574E068188.live891#doc14620534bodyText4

Originally posted by Personalausweisportal (German):

Vorteile

• Mit dem Online-Ausweis ist eine zuverlässige Altersbestätigung in der Online-Welt ohne Medienbruch möglich.
  
• ...

Originally posted by Personalausweisportal (English):

Key features

• With an Online-Ausweis we provide a reliable age verification for the online world.
  
• ...

That being said pretty much EVERYTHING needed is there already. Valve just decided to simply not use it because it was the easier (and less expensive) way to handle the situation

P.S: just to prevent an argument such as "Yeah but not everyone has a card reader you know". Every single modern smartphone comes with NFC so pretty much everyone using 2FA would be able to use this login / verification method. Aside from that card readers start at 30€ and for most people that investment way worth it.

[flyomotive]

To add to that, the age lookup is privacy respecting and allows for an "age assurance" meaning steam doesn't even get your exact age, just that you are over 18/21/whatever applies.

[Sazzouu]

Originally posted by flyomotive:

To add to that, the age lookup is privacy respecting and allows for an "age assurance" meaning steam doesn't even get your exact age, just that you are over 18/21/whatever applies.

Thank you for the addition