Steam Reportedly Asks User of 19 Years to Verify if They Are 18

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As a long-time Steam user based in the UK, I recently found myself in an amusing predicament: despite my account being 19 years old, Steam asked me to confirm my age again when trying to access certain games. This seems to be due to a recent law in the UK that requires age verification for mature content on their platform.

Starting from August 29, Valve has implemented an age-verification system for its UK users on Steam, following the UK Online Safety Act (OSA) that was enacted in 2023. This system verifies the user’s age based on the active credit card associated with their account. As a result, anyone under 18 years old will be restricted from accessing mature content games and related community hubs on Steam. In contrast, some regions allow access to similar content by just providing the user’s birthdate without any other verification processes.

Steam Prompts an Account Created 19 Years Ago to Prove the User is 18

In an amusing turn of events, Twitter user Christina Tasty found herself asked to confirm her age, even though she’s had a Steam account for 19 years. Though the verification process wasn’t overly intrusive, Christina was taken aback by the request due to the age of her specific account. This prompt popped up when she attempted to visit the Steam page for a game she already owned. Subsequently, other longtime Steam users began sharing images of their own account ages in the comments section. Many commentators suggested that the UK law, rather than Valve, was responsible for Christina’s predicament.

As a dedicated gamer, I’ve noticed an interesting shift recently on the gaming scene, particularly on platforms like Steam and Itch.io. The UK Online Safety Act is being implemented across Steam, and along with it, a wave of change has swept through adult games on PC.

Valve, the platform owner, decided to remove certain adult content due to a new clause that forbids any material deemed unacceptable by payment processors like Visa and Mastercard. It’s been quite a stir, especially when Itch.io’s collection of adult games faced a similar fate. However, after a strong response from the gaming community, some of these games were partially restored.

It’s an evolving situation, and as a fan, I’m keeping a close eye on how it unfolds!

Discussing games suitable for adults, some users started observing recently that there’s a possibility to completely remove the mature content warning from the Steam pages of such games. Yet, it appears that this feature was only visible to a select few and wasn’t a global implementation as of yet.

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2025-08-31 17:33