This week, Steam joined Xbox and PlayStation in requiring Australian users to verify their age before purchasing age-restricted games. However, unlike the other two platforms, Valve currently offers only one method of verification: linking a credit card to your Steam account.
Users without a linked credit card who attempt to access certain store pages will see the following message: "Valve must verify that you are over 18 years of age to access adult content, in accordance with the Age-Restricted Materials Application Distribution Service Guidelines. To continue, please add a valid Australian credit card and then update your adult content preferences."
Valve's logic is easy to understand: applying for a credit card requires being at least 18 years old, and banks already verify various government-issued IDs during the application process. The problem is that not everyone holds a credit card. Australia has a total population of approximately 28 million, with about 22 million adults, yet there are only 14.7 million registered credit cards—meaning millions of adult Australians do not have one. These users are clearly not going to apply for a credit card just to play R18+ games on Steam.
Adding to the confusion, although Valve's prompt explicitly requires a credit card, some Australian users have reported that certain debit cards—particularly those from the country's four major banks—can successfully complete verification, while others cannot.
Unlike Xbox and PlayStation, which offer multiple verification methods (including uploading government-issued ID), Valve provides only the credit card route. Furthermore, the effectiveness of age verification itself is questionable: on some platforms that allow facial recognition scans, users have easily bypassed them using images of Kazuma Kiryu, the protagonist of the Yakuza series. Concerns about privacy and data security also persist.
This is not the first time Steam has taken a lackluster approach to issues in Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission previously took Valve to court, with the Federal Court ultimately confirming that Valve had engaged in misleading conduct regarding consumer rights.