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Steam will no longer sell games that do not have an age rating in Germany due to regulations
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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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I don't understand why they don't use an age verification provider like PostIdent for 18+ titles
How do you know the title is 18+ if you dont have an age rating
More stupidly, my account is already 19 years old at this point.
What else should it be, 99+?
I think you misunderstand their point. PostIdent would only be useful AFTER someone took the time to rate the game. Steam does not require any official content/maturity rating in their store, just some subjective content descriptors. To do so would pass an additional cost onto developers. The US-based ESRB process, for example, can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to rate a title.
Further to your point, I try to limit the number of times I provide my personal ID online. It's one thing when you show your ID at a bar and the bartender gives it back to you after a glance. It's another when I'm sending a photocopy over the internet and trusting a remote, distant party to use the data once and discard it. Even worse if they save it for future use and risk leaking it later.
German ID (ePerso) can transmit your age anonymously.
They might not have age ratings to games. Though, some games require you to put your birthday in to access. But, you can just lie, most of time Steam doesn't save the date.
Valve's team for the store is absolutely tiny. They simply chose not to hire anyone who is qualified to deal with German bureaucracy. This is the easiest and least costly way (since it's up to developers to self-rate their games) to comply with regulations.