If Valve never had offered their website in German, wasn't offering Germany-specific payment options, didn't show customers prices in Euros (needless to say: never had made Germany-specific game versions) ...
– then maybe in that alternative reality, they can at least try to pretend that they don't have to follow them laws.

But as it is, they are selling to Europeans "in Europe" under Euro laws.

The same goes for stuff like https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-loses-final-appeal-in-australian-lawsuit-on-the-hook-for-dollar24-million-fine/ of course.


And yes, if you can survive the loss of sales, and your anti-communist heart allows it, just don't distribute your title in Germany. Then again, wouldn't filling out the survey in question have taken you far less time than you have already invested into this thread? Perhaps your survey hostility is to be considered an obstacle.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย luckz:

If Valve never had offered their website in German, wasn't offering Germany-specific payment options, didn't show customers prices in Euros (needless to say: never had made Germany-specific game versions) ...
– then maybe in that alternative reality, they can at least try to pretend that they don't have to follow them laws.

But as it is, they are selling to Europeans "in Europe" under Euro laws.

The same goes for stuff like https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-loses-final-appeal-in-australian-lawsuit-on-the-hook-for-dollar24-million-fine/ of course.

There are some choice words in there.

This important precedent confirms the ACCC’s view that overseas-based companies selling to Australian consumers must abide by our laws," ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said.

2.4 million is probably well below the amount Valve makes from Australia in any given year. Again, it's probably the same situation. Valve could refuse to participate in Australian legal proceedings and let them make it an international incident. That's what I would do in all cases like this. It's a matter of principle that protectionist policies are not the way.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย luckz:

And yes, if you can survive the loss of sales, and your anti-communist heart allows it, just don't distribute your title in Germany. Then again, wouldn't filling out the survey in question have taken you far less time than you have already invested into this thread? Perhaps your survey hostility is to be considered an obstacle.

It took me exactly 5 seconds to click the button that auto-populated the survey with answers to questions from Brazil's survey. The game was already 18+ in Brazil, and now it's 18+ in Germany. It would probably be a better idea to just lie and say your game is some family-friendly ♥♥♥♥ for communist babies, regardless of content. The equivalent in the US would be the ESRB's M rating, which does not require an ID check by law, therefore Steam can still sell it in the land of the free (until that inevitably changes due to overseas pressure; I wouldn't be surprised).

Simple solution: Sell your game in a censored state in germany/brazil. But offer a uncensoring patch on a completely different website for free. A lot of companies do that. It allows to get the sales from the countries that hate your content, but allows customers to buy/play the game. And if they want, they can get the patch and play the game how you intended. Unless you don't care about the minimal loss of your nieche game in these regions. In that case, just refuse to sell in those countries.

That's a good idea. I would take it a step further and offer the mature content patch as Steam DLC to make it easier for players, because players are lazy. I have seen that done by smaller developers.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย MSE:

That's a good idea. I would take it a step further and offer the mature content patch as Steam DLC to make it easier for players, because players are lazy. I have seen that done by smaller developers.

Sorry to disappoint you:

German customers used a workaround via commandline to still be able to get those free DLCs. But Valve has long fixed this exploit. So Valve made sure that it is now COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to be able to buy/download or even install free DLCs for erotic or adult games.

Offering those DLCs as a free or paid patch for your game on a external website or a devs discord server is now the only way to get adult content to suffering german customers. :/

That's f*cking brutal. I will do both in that case.

Very great changes!

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Admiral WoWS:

They don't want to be anti-privacy and ask for your passport or other documents. So blame your governments for unreasonably intrusive anti-privacy demands. Valve has always been pro-privacy where it's legally possible.

That argument makes no sense whatsoever.

There's nothing anti-privacy about the age verification procedure wrt Valve's position in it.
In the expected set-up, Valve wouldn't perform age verification themselves but would use a certified third-party to perform the checks and communicate the results back to them.
The question they get to ask is simply: "Can the person who will identify themselves to you under track-back generated ID <XYZ>, identify themselves to you as a legal adult? Yes/No"

Valve doesn't get to know who that person is.
The organization performing the check doesn't get to know why Valve needs to know that.


In Germany there are a few approved authorities and companies that are allowed to perform verification based on national ID, i.e. on passport. These are either direct government authorities or semi-public subsidiaries, such as the German postal offices - or they are privately owned companies that require explicit certification and periodic re-certification and are held to excruciatingly strong standards as per the GDPR.

The national ID is one of the most well-protected cases of personal data there is - it not only being in the category of special personal data alongside medical data and data regarding ethnicity and religion, but also being the sole type of data for which member states are allowed to enact additional protective rules that restrict what entities are allowed to process it and under which conditions.

There is no way Valve would want to perform the checks in-house and subject themselves to all that red tape. Any sane business strategist would opt to out-source it to a certified trusted third party.



All of this nonsense is going to come to an end by iirc 2025 anyway, as if I'm not mistaken that is the current expected due date for launching the first versions of the unified EU 'digital passport' service.

That service will allow internationally operating vendors to perform basic yes/no claims verification such as "is this person of legal adult age?" by first asking the visitor their nationality and then redirecting them to a national government-run online identification service that can verify the claim.

From the requesting party's point of view all of that is going to be running on one unified protocol. It's only the claimant who has to finish the procedure through their own national digital identification service's means - which will then send back the result according to the unified protocol.

...
Actually, that may well be why Valve is holding out on a solution specific to Germany as-is right now.

What is up with all these awards?

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Wok:

What is up with all these awards? :eyeseeyou:

Post some nonsense and you too can become rich.
Steam, the land of opportunity.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Wok:

What is up with all these awards? :eyeseeyou:

Someone feels charitable

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย 3RDplayer:

Simple solution: Sell your game in a censored state in germany/brazil.

That is what we wanted to do, we actually created our "base game" as 13+ (no nudity, no sex, nothing "explicit") thinking we could have paid and free DLCs down the line that had different ratings. Yet when the game was reviewed, we were told to put "sexual content" in our steamworks review, which then added the 18+ tag on it. Even with all the care we took to make sure nothing was ever shown. There is no sex or implied sex, no genitals or breasts, nothing; just "bikini/underwear". We might as well have gone full on 18+ hentai and "not" waste months of 13/16+ content creation...

And with the game only 3 days from release, I do not know who to reach out to get this solved. My last message about this in our review with steam support got ignored completely so I was searching for tips/solution about which checkbox are fine and what to actually put in that "survey"

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย FireHawkX:

And with the game only 3 days from release, I do not know who to reach out to get this solved. My last message about this in our review with steam support got ignored completely so I was searching for tips/solution about which checkbox are fine and what to actually put in that "survey"

I just had a similar conversation with Steam support. Basically:

* There are bugs on their end that they're still working out
* Some Nudity or Sexual Content does not trigger the adult-only flag
* Frequent Nudity or Sexual Content DOES trigger some kind of adult-only flag
* Adult Only Sexual Content triggers the same kind of adult-only flag as before

Open a separate support request outside of the game's review and ask the adult only flag to be removed. It will get looked at by different people. If you have to, push back the game's release.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply :) I already have a separate ticket opened where I explain the situation like i did above. Hopefully it all work out! :)

mssz