WTF?! Players in AU have to use a CC for age verification via steam just to view "violent" games!

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨SilentSparrow@multiverse.soulism.net⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://multiverse.soulism.net/static/media/posts/gz/Mc/gzMc0Tlx4LD26SL.png

I’ve received this picture from a friend of mine who’s living there, in which she’s trying to buy Resident Evil 4 whilst on sale. That’s only speaking about being signed in, its the same when a guest tries to view the page whilst in Australia (rendering it inaccessible). I’m not from there, but to me that sounds completely retarded.

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Comments

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remon@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Yeah, they just implemented that law a few days ago.

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- SilentSparrow@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Are you from AU? If so, did you do it or simply refuse to comply?
  
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  - remon@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m not, just read it in the news.
    
    But I guess you could try a VPN and buy the game from another country or pirate it.
    
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mp3@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Blame the elected officials for forcing Valve’s hands. Valve effectively had these choices:

Stop operating in Australia

Not comply and pay fines

Use CC as an indirect way to verify age (since banks are regulated themselves and do identify verification before issuing one)

Do age verification (by themselves themselves or through a third-party) and put users data at risk in case of a data leak

To me it seems like they chose the least risky option available.
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JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Australia has been weird about “violent video games” for some time now, haven’t they? I seem to remember GTA and maybe Fallout games having to be censored for the Australian market.

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- SilentSparrow@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  [deleted]
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  - ms_lane@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    There are basically two things you can’t do in a videogames here.
    
    Sexual Violence - it’s just not allowed, the South Park scene falls here.
    
    Realistic and/or beneficial depictions of drug use - This is where Morphine to Med-X falls.
    
    Violence hasn’t been an issue an ~15 years, but used to be an issue since we didn’t have an R18 rating for games, they topped out at MA15+, so violence had to top out at what was acceptable for a 15 year old and no more, but that’s a thing of the past.
    
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- celeste@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think they were one of the places where Fallout took out child models so players couldn't kill them
  
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- tidderuuf@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s not just video games. Their movie, television and video game rating review board are made up of old prudish boomers who consider a sneeze in the wind as offensive.
  
  There have been some articles about how most politicians are fine with everything that happens and that voters have become numb to it or found ways to just circumnavigate the blocking.
  
  I guess some people do not enjoy freedom as much as others.
  
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- Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They banned Manhunt and Bully iirc
  
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slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
What is stupid is you can get debit credit cards before your 18, which means that a 15 year old passes the are they over 18 check.

I don’t live there anymore but why do we put up with it? We don’t have a choice. Who else are we going to buy from? EB Games? Kmart? JBHifi? All of them just give you a steam code.

We are use to being fucked over by valve. We were paying for games in US$ until 2018 and the whole returns policy of 2 hours of gameplay is bullshit.

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- ms_lane@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  You need a Credit Card.
  
  The Visa Debit I’ve had on file with steam for ~19 years was rejected. The account is older than the age requirement, Valve has had the card longer than the age requirement, but still no.
  
  I used that card to buy DEFCON and that’s so long ago Valve no longer have records of it (transaction history starts at The Orange Box in 2007 due to changes almost 20 years ago, which was purchased with that card…)
  
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  - snooggums@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    My guess is that the law doesn’t allow wiggle room for using account age.
    
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- remon@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  But you need a credit card for the age verification a debit card won’t work.
  
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AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Looks to me like malicious compliance. Make the gamers pissed so they protest to who can change the law.

Also, at least they are not asking for a photo of your ID, so here’s that.

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HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You know who actually makes out like a bandit in this situation? The credit card companies. All the sudden a bunch of people are applying for credit cards that didn't have one or need one before. And because some existing CC's are getting rejected, people are actually thinking about applying for a second card!

And listen, this is Valve we're talking about, it's not like they don't have the money and engineering talent and lawyers to figure out a way to make a system that works for consumers. They just have beef with Australia and are going with malicious compliance. For all the instances I've seen of people with accounts older than 18 years that are getting rejected, that's a system rife with bugs. Valve could have absolutely rolled out a better system, they just chose to be lazy.

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I_Jedi@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I wanna know when the Australian government will send some dudes out to kick in some doors and bust some heads to send a message against anyone trying to thwart this.

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