Steam Surrenders, Implements Age Verification for UK Users

Steam has become the latest web service to implement age verification for UK users.

Gaming storefront, Steam, has become the latest to implement age verification. Last month, they began censoring whole games at the behest of payment processors. Now, they are appeasing the British bullies in government by implementing age verification. The move follows other platforms and services surrendering to laws like these. They include Discord, Reddit, Spotify, Rockstar, and Nexus Mods.

Steam has apparently joined the ranks of the cowards. From Eurogamer:

Steam users in the UK must now verify their age in order to access store pages for games with mature content, as required by the Online Safety Act.

Valve has released instructions for UK users to opt in using credit card details, which will trigger a £0 authorisation. In the UK, you must be at least 18 years of age to obtain a credit card.

“Having the credit card stored as a payment method acts as an additional deterrent against circumventing age verification by sharing a single Steam user account among multiple persons,” the instructions read.

The FAQ offers additional details for UK users as well.

Now, credit where credit is due here, if they had to implement this age verification system, I can’t think of a better way to do so. In order to purchase games, you do need some kind of banking information. Credit card is already stored in the system, so utilizing this identifying information to comply with the law is probably the least painful method under the circumstances. There is no additional third party processing this information which is a big improvement over what others are doing from a security standpoint.

The problem I see here is that credit card companies would, as a result of this, wield more power over Steam. They can receive pressure from extremists who are hell bent on forcing their views of morality onto everyone else which will, in turn, pressure Steam to do everything they say. If Steam doesn’t comply with whatever blackmail demands are made by those payment processors, then Steam runs the risk of losing their, currently, only means of age verification which would subject Steam to potential daily fines. After all, it’s why Steam began censoring games in the first place.

As I’ve said many times before, this capitulation will not serve these platforms well in the long run. There are those who think things like ‘no amount of gaming is safe for anyone’ or ‘social media is unhealthy for youth’ or even subscribe to the notion that younger people shouldn’t be on the internet at all and push for even more surveillance on people. Others might warp this into additional agendas such as pushing dangerous online harms laws or seek power to unmask individuals expressing political views they don’t like. There is no bottom for how far the government is willing to go until they receive pushback. By letting the governments nose in the tent with age verification, you are inviting the whole government camel into the tent. So, it’s only a matter of time before things get worse.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.