I believe Valve has a duty to revise and update its processes.
I'm confused. Valve has an automated questionnaire for age rating fro Brazil for 3 years now and Germany for a year already, and it warned all the developers multiple times to fill it in or the games won't show in Germany after some date in the future (I guess that's coming close). What do you expect them to do exactly if someone didn't fill that in a year? They even post a warning in your dashboard if you have urgent actions required...
It's another thing if Germany doesn't accept (but I assume Valve had some knowledge if that will be acceptable before they put it in) that level of self-regulation, nothing Valve or a random indie dev can do about that.
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The problem with Germany is most of the time that the people do not understand the regulations regarding youth protection at all.
It is also basically since forever that every game without a rating be it from the USK or selflabeled should not be sold to anyone below the age of 18. For selflabeling you do not need to involve anybody at all as long as you do not sell physicall copies of your game.
And Valve takes the hammer approach and forces the consequences of a law, that only should affect the selling of games to people below the age of 18, to every german adult does not help at all.
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Isn't it another problem, that Germany "doesn't recognize" Steam's age verification, because it's just useless? This way there is no trustworthy way to separate adults from the people under 18.
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If Steam would have a age verification the problem would be solved!
Right now there is only a age question without any verification involved.
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I'm not in Germany or super up to date with the laws.
As far as I know from the occasional German acquaintances telling me - German laws essentially would need to ID somebody to see their age, like when buying alcohol. But on Steam you can just say "sure I am" and they let everyone access anything.
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You're correct.
A digital system would need an ID check to verify that someone is over 18. Problem is, that this can easily be circumvented by, for example, a 14 year old who has access to Dads ID.
I thought about it in the past and I can't see a system for Steam that can not be circumvented. But nevertheless, an ID check within Steam would be enough for german law and german customers would bathe in porn again ;)
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If you have an identity card with eID, your child could not do anything online with it without knowing your PIN for it.
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True.
But what if your child knows the PIN? So I wouldn't deem this 100% safe.
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For PostIdent you have to go to the store, other services use video / call with camera.
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True.
But afaik PostIdent costs money. Money that either you, as a customer, have to pay or the other side, in our case Steam/Valve, has to pay. The latter won't happen. And if you first have to pay money to be able to shop at Steam, I think most customers would not be willing to do so.
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Reminds me of the attempt the Chinese government made a few years ago to reduce playtime for minors to one hour a day. A lot of grandparents turned into dedicated gamers as a result.
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Inactive developers/publishers are at fault themselves, but customers who wanted these games and can't get them anymore aren't to blame. In case of abandoned games that might be good, but what about finished ones? We'll also have to see if this means a returnal of all the adult only games Valve just made unavailable 2 years ago instead of offering a proper solution back then.
As a user you can still pick a birthday and configure to see everything you want in the store. This should require an one time age verification.
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Valve did? I didn't know that. Us as normal Steam users didn't get that information, afaik. You as a developer know more.
If Valve warned all the developers, there is no more from my side to ask of Valve. The ball then is in the devs hands.
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Yes, Valve did. Here's one of the last year emails, and there was few this year too. And emails aren't the only warning they give you. I think the 2nd line answers your musing about pre-release requirements too.
Any game released after 2020 has a questionnaire filled for Brazil and later updated for Germany, effective April 1st 2023. Only older games have to be "filled" with answers, takes a minute-five per game and it's up to developers/publishers.
I don't really worry about indie developers, I'm afraid some larger publishers might not really care about their back catalogue, specially if they... acquired it through the years and wasn't theirs originally.
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Thank you very much for your additions. This is background information that is desperately needed to understand the bigger picture.
I am happy to see that Valve proactively did something.
I still think that, to make every game available in the german store in the future, Valve should make it a prerequirement that, if you want to sell your game in germany, you have to hand in the filled out questionnaire or a letter of proof that you got approved by the USK or otherwise your store page will not go live. This wouldn't catch older titles, of course, but every future release.
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Valve's questionnaire is required to release the game, if I didn't made that clear before, for any game released after 2020. Those released before might be in "danger", if their publishers didn't go back and spent 3-5 minutes to fill in the missing data in the past year...
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I didn't get that before, so thank you. Maybe I'm a little bit slow today...
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Are we just gonna see people do VPN and/or change their regional settings?
At least I think if the proverbial stuff hits the fan, I could see that happening.
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You gonna risk your acc if you switch regions to much, besides good luck finding a VPN that steam does not detect.
It is better to find a more unknown VPN and make a whole new US account.
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VPN + foreign country payment method to change it, yeah. Some already did that after Valve had made adult only games unavailable, probably more will do it then if they can't find some popular games anymore.
Key activation and gifting are workarounds, but not everything is available as key and you don't want to ask your international friends every time a desired game is at a good discount.
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if the dev can simply selflabel without USK rating for it to show up, then I dont see the problem.
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According to heise this will affect games like "Return of the Obra Dinn", "Papers, Please", "Pathologic", "Undertale", "Minit", "Cave Story", "FEZ" and "Slay the Spire" unless the devs will add either an usk rating or go through valve's self-rating process.
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well, at least now some of the mentioned games do have an age rating for Germany:
"Return of the Obra Dinn" 18
"Papers, Please" 16
"Minit" 8
"Slay the Spire" 12
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I like how Germans can volunteer for military service at 17, but need to wait that extra year in order to qualify for an adventure game.
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Though you need parental approval to volunteer for military service if you're underage. Last year a friends nephew wanted to volunteer when he was 3 months shy of 18, his parents had to accompany him and allow his early application in person.
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Pretty much the same with Americans being able to drive before they can vote. And to vote before they're thought of as mature enough to drink... which pretty much says everything you need to know about democracy ;)
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Question to ask is do these games sell enough to be bothered to take the effort or pay the money needed to do this?
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It's 1200 € for a USK rating (for each game). Thus most indie devs will use Valve's form.
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As long as you do not sell physical copies you can self label the game yourself by just saying the age you want.
No USK rating needed nor is a Valve form as Gatekeeper needed too.
If Physical copies are sold as well, the valve form is pointless because then USK is mandatory.
But the only thing a non labeld game do is being 18+ per default and not being forbidden to be sold.
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Quoting NB264 from above: "Valve's questionnaire is required to release the game". So for releasing it on Steam and make it available in Germany (and similarly in Brazil) one of both is required.
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My answer was more related to what is required by german law for games in general.
And by law it is either USK or self labeling for digital only games or USK for digital+physical games.
Having no USK or self labeling does not mean it is not allowed to be sold to adults.
I understand that Steam tries to get the publishers to selflabel themself with the questionnarie and help them with some basic guidelines, but steam actions show that they do not understand the german youth protection situation and by doing so they somehow also disregard the e-Commerce rules in the EU. With blocking games they do not need to block by law they treat EU people different depending on their geolocation (in this case adult germans) . This kind of discrimination should not happen in the EU.
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but steam actions show that they do not understand the german youth protection situation and by doing so they somehow also disregard the e-Commerce rules in the EU.
You are misunderstanding this as a legal issue as it is more of a compliance issue. The onus would be on Steam to show regulators that each game on their store front is compliant and it would be easier to point to a USK rating or a completed questionnaire. If Valve opted to allow self labelling, they would need a way store this information and have it readily available for hundreds/thousands of games that opted this path. This can get out of hand pretty quickly so I see why Valve just decided to not allow games to be sold if the dev/publisher can't be assed to do a 5 mins questionnaire.
This kind of discrimination should not happen in the EU.
Self labelling gives you the right to sell the game in Germany, not the right to sell it via Steam in Germany. The dev can always open their own store front/website.
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Online sellers should treat all EU consumers equally regardless of where they choose to shop, that is what part of the e-Commerce rules are about.
Steam is a Store and therefore a seller.
By blocking store pages and the ability to buy from the seller, Steam as a seller treats you differently depending on the place you live.
Steam could of course decide to not sell a not self labeled game to the whole of EU then it would treat everyone the same (No i do not want that to happen)
Self labeling is basically just saying my games is suited for everyone 16 or above 15 or above or whatever.
You do not need any documentation for it.
However there can be consequences later on if you selflabel your game 6+ and have the most gory game that ever existed.
Not self labeling is basically just saying the game is only suited for adults.
And here we have the misunderstanding most foreign people have with the german youth protection law.
It should not affect german adults at all.
Steams approach does affect German adults allready and with the full implementation even more.
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I would say here, that the law don't accept a simple 'yeah I'M 18 I swear' button as proof as 18+ person. That's at least what I got out of a discussion. The law requires YOU to proof that you are the age you claim to be. ANd a simple button for such things isn't enough for german law and therefore face legal consequences. Opting out is way easier than forcing your players to proof they are legal age according to the law.
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Yep that is the case and since steam does not provide the means for a proper age verification here we are.
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Member states can have individual, and more strict rules than the umbrella-laws the EU has.
Germany is free to restrict the access of their citizen if they create laws regarding that. Steam can't break German law in Germany, nor quote and push the "weaker" EU law to override the German one.
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Germany do not restrict access in this case nor does it require that Steam does it for adults to complie to youth protection.
This is a pure Steam restricts access to every german adult thing.
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Self labeling is basically just saying my games is suited for everyone 16 or above 15 or above or whatever.
You do not need any documentation for it.
If Valve is challenged by the regulator, how do they go about proving that a developer/publisher has self labelled without documenting it? You cannot go to the regulator and say "Trust me bro". They have to show proof that they took the appropriate steps demonstrating that a game sold on their platform is compliant.
However there can be consequences later on if you selflabel your game 6+ and have the most gory game that ever existed.
Not self labeling is basically just saying the game is only suited for adults.
Yes but the onus is still on Valve to show that the products they sell on their platforms are compliant. Nothing is stopping a dev/publisher from lying on the Steam questionnaire.
And here we have the misunderstanding most foreign people have with the german youth protection law.
It should not affect german adults at all.
Steams approach does affect German adults allready and with the full implementation even more.
Valve does not collect this type of personal information on its userbase and I do not blame them for not wanting to do so. GDPR compliance is a pain in the ass and Germany has already determined that Valve's age gate is not sufficient.
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For digital distribution of games the rating can be given by the maker itself.
When someone wants to distribute physical copys it would be different because then another paragraph of the youth protection law would apply.
Digital distribution = Self Rating possible (JMStV)
Physical distribution = USK need to be involved (JuSchG)
Unrated be it USK or self labeled means only sellable to adults by default and the same is true for any title with USK 18 rating, however unrated and or self labeled (including the Steam thing) also means that it may land on the index later on which would lead to further marketing and sales restrictions having a USK label gives you security that it will not happen.
To sell USK18 and not labeled games online you need in fact an proper age verification.
Because Steam is unwilling to do so is basically the root why i said that they treat german adults differently to any other EU adult and therfore disregarding e-Commerce rules in the EU.
So yeah i want a proper age verification and not be treated as a minor by Steam/Valve.
What is the next step that they stop showing pages for Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Assasins Creed Valhalla, Fallout 4 and so on because of this? All of them are USK18 and could be possible affected by the way Steam handles the Situation (not implementing a proper age verification).
They allready need to be GDPR compliant anyway so that would not be a new thing.
Edit:
Look all i am saying is this.
Steams current approach...
...will not lead to full complience to the youth protection law (If not applied to USK18 and all other label 18+ titels as well, which they do not.).
...will disregard EU e-Commerce rules.
...will treat adults as minors (which should not happen)
A proper age verification...
...would lead to full complience to the youth protection law.
...would treat adults as adults and minors as minors.
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Well, since this thread is about Valve/Steam, I missed the "in general" in first posting then. But yeah, then it's accurate.
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I did not say it and somehow assumed that it would be understandable what i tried to say in the first place.
Which obviously was not the case ;).
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It must be ensured that young people and children do not get their hands on games that are not suitable for their age. In most cases, parents do not take on this task as they usually have no idea about digital platforms.
Corporations are not anyone parents. If a minor want to get material that's not for his/her age - he will get it. If not from steam - then from other places. And yes - I'm speaking from experience. I used to be a minor.
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My Son used to underage on Youtube to watch Sabu wrestling matches so just made a second account which he made saying he was over 18 and needed no checks or anything else
Great Sabu match he couldn't watch with his normal account at the time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypu7qqULyYk
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oh you used to be a minor? damn..i think we all were a minor and some point...
so by your logic you think it makes no sense to forbid anything? wow
you are right, the company is not responsible but they need to act on specific laws, the laws that prevent children to see stuff they shouldnt see.
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no sense to forbid anything
What I'm saying is that laws will be useless if actuall parents won't take a time to see what their kids are doing. Law might be good and so on. but at the end of the day only thing it will change will be the fact that somebody will pirate game instead of buying it. That's what I was doing Not with games though, but other stuff.
We were doing home made explosives. At one point local shops stopped to sell us certain spice we used as ingreddient. So we just started to steal it. And we were doing the same thing just without paying.
And we could do it because our parents didn't give a fuck.
That being said todays youth is quite tame. The just want to play some adult games and not blow the stuff up.
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What I meant by that is:
Most parents don't have any clue about what their children do on the internet. So an age restriction is a good idea to help the parents decide if their child is allowed to play the game or not.
It is still the responsibility of the parents to buy or not buy the games for their children. But it is a very good idea that parents can easily see if the game their child wants is suitable for its age.
What children do when they are sailing the open seas or what they do with their own money is another thing. I am simply saying that I am totally in favor of the existence of a system that helps parents decide if the game they want to buy for their children is okay for their age.
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I see your point. But thats kind of lazy aproach. I have seen games with quite low age rating but plenty of violence. Also some quite tame games but with high age rating because of some controversial topics.
Not to mention that some people want to use games as some sort of hidden preaching.I would rather see what games my kids are playing instead of just chacking if it has proper age rating.
I'm tired and what I wrote is probably some kind of mind vomit.
TL:DR:
parents do not take on this task
They fucking should
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Corporations are responsible for advertising the products. If a minor doesn't know that "Hentai [whatever]" exists, they won't search for it. If they look at Steam store without proper age verification they get to know all the stuff. Of course, they can get the information elsewhere, but then it's not Valve's responsibility.
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Why would minor use steam without parent surveilance though?
Oh yes. Because parents wants to do everything but parenting.
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Even if you setup Steam at home properly and your kid either can't access it or use a restricted child account only, imagine it's visting its friends, whose parents might not be that thoughtful. Then there are PCs at school, in internet cafes.. of course you could be helicopter parents, but that will make your kid even more interested in everything that's not talked about or even forbidden.
Libraries, rental stores and sex shops have to verify age. Every store has to verify age when it comes to alcohol and cigarettes. Why don't you see any responsibility at all in Steam? That doesn't remove parent's responsibility.
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That doesn't remove parent's responsibility.
Yup. Because torrents or pirate sites don't care about age either.
Also being a helicopter parent is one of the worst things you can do to your child. That being said - it's easier to teach kid to use it's own brain and teach him/her some values early in life than controlling everything around. It's just impossible.
For whatever reason german government thinks that it can be helicopter parent for everybody. "oh no! this is swastika! If you look at this you will do the same what your grand-grand father did in Poland while being on meth during blitzkrieg!".
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In your discussion with dohlicious the "getting it anyway by other means" was already discussed and you at least admitted that the law could be good. It makes it harder, some kids will go out of their way and get it nonetheless, others will refrain. I'm not up to date what's available on the high seas, but there's a lot of pornographic trash on Steam which shouldn't be that popular to find active torrents all the time.
I fully agree regarding helicopter parents. If parents use the law as excuse to not feel responsible, of course they are at fault. I'm also on your side regarding teaching values early, being open to talk about everything and better providing information yourself instead of kids getting fake infos somewhere else. But we don't talk about teens only here. Would you like to explain your 7 year old daughter what "Furry MILFs" are or "femdom" means, because she saw it in her friend's Steam store after having a session of Paw Patrol? Basic sex education is something else than having to explain fetishes.
Swastikas in games aren't forbidden in Germany anymore (since 2018) and are treated like in movies already before: critical context matters. And yes, we already have enough neo nazis and violent crimes based on that ideology despite gloryfying media being illegal.
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They never where forbidden in games even before.
It only meant they got no USK label and almost certainly landed on the index.
So they where still sell able to adults.
But i have the feeling that being on the index was much worse back in the day without internet.
I mean if marketing for your game was/is not allowed nobody will know about it.
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https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/844934/17a6d3c89da168fb9f1de0deef732a6d/WD-10-014-21-pdf.pdf#page=5
Well, the "index" itself is divided in four lists. If A or C, only advertising is forbidden, like you described it. Generally, Steam advertises based on their algorithm and account based store settings without considering regional laws. Publishers have to set restrictions or offer alternative versions (up to completely different scenarios like the former Wolfensteins). To comply with index list C (A doesn't matter, since physical), Valve would need to make these games disappear from store main page, sale pages, curators etc, so you could only find one when actively searching for it, plus a proper age verification.
If index list B or D (possible violation of criminal laws including incitement of the people), even distribution is forbidden, thus you aren't even allowed to sell these upon direct demand by the customer and age verification.
Excuse me for not going into that level of detail towards an international user. :D
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Understandable it would only cause more confusion and misunderstanding by doing so.
I just pointed it out because of the exaggerated german censoring that seems to be in the heads of foreigners (germans too i guess) because of the missunderstanding regading the youth protection stuff.
Isn´t it just one index since 05/2021?
https://www.bzkj.de/bzkj/indizierung/wie-laeuft-ein-indizierungsverfahren-ab/listenfuehrung
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Oh, two now (public and not public). So they merged digital and physical, which makes sense. But I assume consequences are still the same: public: can be distributed, but not advertised, non public: can't be distributed at all.
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The non public list is just for things where the product/site name is harmfull to minors by itself and or would lead to the source if written down, like a url.
Both list are treated equally with the only difference if it is a physicall thing or only digital.
In both cases no advertising and no access for minors but sellable to adults.
So pretty similiar to former handling of List A and C
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Would you like to explain your 7 year old daughter what "Furry MILFs" are or "femdom" means, because she saw it in her friend's Steam store after having a session of Paw Patrol?
That's a good point xD That being said - I already had to explain worse things to 7 yo... Because children in primary school talk about things I wasn't able to imagine before xD Best solution would be to not allow kids before age of 13 to any device connected to internet, which is not really possible today xD
Swastikas in games aren't forbidden in Germany anymore (since 2018)
That's new info for me. Last info I had about censorship in germany was about Wolfenstein 2 being removed from steam due to swastikas. But that was apparently before 2019 xD Time sure flies. Good to hear that it's somewhat better now.
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Yeah, I can only imagine which terms are being used nowadays in the schoolyard. You can't completely prevent that. In general I lean more towards freedom than security, but a proper age verification wouldn't take away freedom from adults and not create much effort if it has to be done once only. Implementing that is Valve's job.
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Yeah - I agree.
I'm just trying to say that:
In most cases, parents do not take on this task as they usually have no idea about digital platforms.
Should not be an excuse.
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Right. Because being a good parent requires sitting around all day staring at their children and doing literally nothing else.
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Not really. Just teach them early what kind of behaviors you expect from them. If you missed right time to do this - nothing will help.
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Nothing is ever so cut and dry. My parents taught me their expectations and I proceeded to do whatever I wanted; consequences be damned lol. And my kids are the same in a lot of ways. One less so than the other.
The only thing you can truly be certain of as a parent is that your kids will definitely do things that you would prefer they didn't. And the more intelligent and/or savvy they are, the more likely it is that you will be completely unaware of a lot of those things until it is far too late, if you ever do become aware of them at all. You just kind of have to hope they survive whatever messes they create or tap you to get them out of bad situations.
The idealized view of parenting you are describing mostly does not exist.
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Thanks for the information. That is good to know. As it seems filling out the valve questionary will be enough. So, I don't think it will be much of an issue for new games.
However, there are quite a bit of good but unknown games where the developer has lost interest or doesn't even exist anymore because the game has not been successful enough. These will most likely be lost to German customers. The chance for finding past gems is decreasing quite a lot by this (although with the store size chances were slim already).
One could argue that this is a good thing to sieve out the developers not caring about their product. Still, I think among my past favourites are some which will fall victim to this.
As mentioned before by someone else: why does this happen to all German customers though? Unless we are talking about games indexed adults should be allowed to buy all games as they don't have to care for any age restrictions.
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adults should be allowed to buy all games as they don't have to care for any age restrictions
And there is the problem again: Steam doesn't have a working age verification system other than "trust me bro". And that is, what would be required by german law. Steam doesn't want to bother with implementing that, so they just hide everything questionable from the store instead. They have done this with any kind of pornographic content in the past and now that will also include games that didn't file for an age rating. It's mainly Steam's laziness.
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Sometimes it's not disinterest but rather than the devs in question are no longer around. I remember this one game in early access that I was waiting for a full release before getting it, but the years went by with no news and then I went and checked only to find a community post saying that the developer had died during the pandemic and the game wasn't going to be ever finished, the dev's partner just made the game free and moved on with their life after writing that post.
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That's a bit misinforming/outdated. Steam's evaluation process is sufficient and is mandatory since something like 2022. So Steam doesn't
need to update their procedures, they have already done so.
The only affected games are therefore titles that were published before 2022 and didn't receive a USK ratification. Publishers and developers still have the option to provide either of the options at any time.
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Looks like Germany's found the solution to the flood of cheap porn games on Steam before Valve did :x
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Those porn games are hidden in the German Steam Store for more than three years now (see https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/4O8Zk/psa-german-steam-store-betreff-deutscher-steam-store). This new change is about older indie games missing an age label.
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It must be ensured that young people and children do not get their hands on games that are not suitable for their age.
I won't be convinced of this until libraries stop allowing children access to similar "not suitable" books.
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The argument used against this comparison is that games are more immersive than books. Because books are just passively consumed, you act in games. So games get treated different than books and films.
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Libraries have movies, tv series, and video games available for borrowing.
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Yes, I know. But here libraries treat games different from books and movies due to our laws. That might very well be unlike they do it in the US, but I was talking about Germany. You can only borrow things according to your age and your ID is requiered for borrowing anything.
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I don't know how it is in your country but our libraries have departments for kids/young adults and they can't usually borrow books (and other items) out of their department. I think it's not as strict as in my childhood, but kids still can't borrow Kama Sutra for example.
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TBH - Kama Sutra would cause less brain damage than book for children (sic) about gender/sexuality issues.
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Right. because kids learning about the world and themselves is very dangerous to their brain... or something
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I try to teach my children stuff that will help them grow up and become self sufficient adults one day. Not stuff that will send them to mental asylum.
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Again with the assumption that learning about themselves and the world is going to turn people insane. In my experience it's people who have ideas like yours who are screwing up their kids.
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ideas like yours
Like controlling what garbage is put for them to read? There is a difference between kids learning about world and themselves and grooming. People who don't see the difference are screwing up their kids.
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I remember how I always wanted to read Kama Sutra, a mysterious forbidden book about sex, that when I actually got to it in my older teens I was quite disappointed... there wasn't anything extra spicy that I wouldn't know already. XD Also, the sex is quite secondary there, it's more about spirit, mutuality, meditation...
Well, some of the modern books for the younger audience are rather scary... ^^
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Kids see way worse than the Kama Sutra just on tv these days. And anyway... if you find kids in a library, they're usually looking for free wifi or they got lost.
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Not sure how big the impact will be. I'd imagine that I won't miss some of those 'indie' productions that didn't take the time to fill out the questionnaire cough asset flips cough. I know it will also affect some indie devs that just didn't bother to do it, but that's easy enough to fix I'd imagine.
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It's reasonable to ask for an age verification system that would allow all games, regardless whether rated or not, to be visible in the catalogue again. This way, old games, and games that have been abandoned but are on autopilot mode for sales do not get delisted.
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Manchmal hasse ich steam wirklich, wirklich sehr. Jetzt gerade ist es der Fall. Irgendwie hab ich sowas seit einer ganzen Weile kommen sehen - etwa seitdem sie uns gewisse Storepages verweigert haben... Und warum es Steam bis heute nicht geschissen bekommt eine Alterverifizierung zu machen, ist mir einfach ein Rätsel. Ich bin erwachsen. Ich sollte das Recht haben selbst zu entscheiden was ich spielen möchte und was nicht. Kann doch nicht angehen, dass ich dafür das Land verlassen muss... oder eben Steam. Welp.
Honestly one of the biggest issues I have with this whole subject is the fact, that the german USK is defined by voluntary ppl. Bc this supposedly narrows it down? The whole thing is just an estimation. It's not science. I mean, yes, fair, the standart German probably has a sense for what is okay for kids and what isn't (unless you are obv parent of a kid... maybe... sometimes...?). So yeah, putting ppl in charge of the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (USK) - Entertainment Software Self-Regulation (USK)... SELFREGULATION. I kinda don't see the selfregulating part. But oh well.
I'm an adult. I should also have certain rights. TY steam for not keeping those in mind. Guess I will have to finally go to itch.io or what not...
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The "self" in "self regulation" is not about the customer's self regulation. It's about the games industry being directly involved in the process. The USK started in 1994 as a voluntary project by the german games industry themselves - similar to the FSK for movies - and back then, the age ratings were just recommendations and not necessarily related to any existing laws. Only since the change of the JuSchG in 2003, they have become a mandatory label for physical games media and they're working together with lawmakers and the government. It's still not a governmental institution.
See also:
https://usk.de/die-usk/arbeit-der-usk/wer-ist-die-usk/
https://www.game.de/themen/jugendschutz/usk/
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterhaltungssoftware_Selbstkontrolle
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If there is concern that a developer/publisher "isn't around anymore" to make the required steps, how is it possible that their game is still purchaseable? The money has to go somewhere, their bank account has to exist and comply with some laws, which in most countries means that someone has to be alive and taking care of it. So SOMEBODY IS AROUND to do that 5-minute questionnaire.
This thought applies to any other issues aswell, where any aspect of selling, maintenance and responsibility for games is concerned, and there is claim that nobody is around anymore but the buy button is still there in the shop. Ofcourse publishers are not developers, but anything that involves the game's Steam configuration (such as store page details) but not the game files itself, somebody is there to take care of it, because somebody is there to happily take the customers' money.
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Companies are happy to just leave anything up there if it makes them money. I have a game in my library that was removed earlier this year. It released on Steam 8 years ago with multiple game breaking glitches and non working achievements. Nothing was ever fixed. It wasn't removed after 8 years because it was a broken mess, but because the publisher was required to remove it when the contract expired.
They don't have to care enough to do anything with it, just leave it up for money to roll in. And a lot of these games will be in a similar situation. The companies involved don't want work past putting it on the store in whatever state, if it stops making them money, at least it didn't require they do anything.
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1 month reminder from Valve
However, there are still roughly 23,000 games remaining for which we have no Content Survey information, meaning that we do not have sufficient information to assign a rating.
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/4678768276768588864
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Thanks, Madjoki.
This is insane. If the developers/publishers don't take action soon, we (us Germans) will no longer see those 23.000 games in the Steam store in four weeks! oO
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https://steamcommunity.com/groups/PleaseRateourGames
There is a (german) Steam group that tries to assemble a list of all affected games and tries to get a hold of the devs/publishers to get them to fill out the form. If you want to help, please join this group.
Thank you!
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To update everyone:
Yesterday was the day and, to put it bluntly, it is a shitshow right now.
Valve used a tool which automatically added the "Restricted countries: Germany" attribute to the approx. 20.000 still affected games. But Valve being Valve, the tool overshot and also flagged games that already had an age rating by the german USK, flagged Demos, Soundtracks, Tools, Software, unreleased Games, DLCs, Free to Play-games, MODS, and so on.
It seems that Valve noticed it and approx. 10 hours after the changes, initiated some kind of rollback that slowly but surely removes the "Restricted countries: Germany" attribute from apps again, which should have not been flagged in the first place.
But, although the flag is removed, some store pages are still hidden or the possibility to buy a game is gone if your account's store region is set to Germany. For example, Halo:TMCC is not buyable and the popular streaming software OBS is still gone.
The chaos still goes on and I guess it will still take another few hours or days until it all will work as intended.
You can see the live changes here.
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some store pages are still hidden with a german IP or the possibility to buy a game is gone
Just a heads up: the IP doesn't matter if you're logged in. It's solely the store region of the account. If that is set to another country, you can access and buy (wallet only) all games not available in Germany even while using a german IP.
The IP might matter if you try to access the store page while being logged out, but even that works for me for Halo and OBS currently. It does however not work for porn games but those had been banned before anyways.
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Just a heads up: the IP doesn't matter if you're logged in. It's solely the store region of the account.
What WaxWorm says is correct :)
I will edit my posting
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First of all to my fellow german Steamgifters:
Massive Änderung im Steam-Store ab dem 15.11.2024!
"Ab dem 15. November 2024 werden Kunden in Deutschland auf Steam keine Spiele mehr angezeigt, für die kein gültiges Alterskennzeichen vorliegt."
Das wird hauptsächlich Indie-Spiele betreffen, die schlicht und einfach kein Geld haben, sich bei der USK eine Altersprüfung zu kaufen.
Valve spricht allerdings auch von "...oder durch den Steam-eigenen Bewertungsprozess". Eventuell reicht das aus und eventuell machen das dann auch die Indie-Entwickler.
Es ist aber davon auszugehen, dass viele Indie-Entwickler beides nicht machen und diese Spiele werden wir schon ab Mitte des nächsten Monats nicht mehr sehen. Da die meisten Spiele auf Steam Spiele von kleinen Indie-Entwicklern sind, kann es sein, dass wir tausende Spiele ab nächsten Monat nicht mehr sehen und auch nicht mehr kaufen können.
Hinweis: Ich möchte hier kein USK-Bashing sehen.
Ich finde es im Sinne des Jugendschutzes und Jugendschutzgesetzes absolut richtig, dass Spiele eine Altersprüfung haben müssen. Es muss sichergestellt sein, dass Jugendliche und Kinder keine Spiele in die Finger bekommen, die für ihr Alter nicht geeignet sind. Eltern übernehmen diese Aufgabe in den meisten Fällen nicht, da sie meistens von digitalen Plattformen keine Ahnung haben.
Ich sehe Valve in der Pflicht, Prozesse zu überarbeiten und zu aktualisieren. Mit einem vernünftigen Altersverfikationssystem wären auch alle Sex-Spiele wieder für uns Deutsche sichtbar (Hier ist es Valve, die das Problem sind).
Bei den Altersangaben könnten die Indie-Entwickler auch seitens Valve direkt verpflichtet werden, so ein Steam-eigenes Formular auszufüllen (siehe oben), damit ihr Spiel überhaupt auf Steam veröffentlicht werden darf. Das Problem wäre wahrscheinlich gelöst.
Edit: NB264 hat darauf hingewiesen, dass Valve bereits seit einem Jahr die Entwickler darauf vorbereitet hat und sie auch gewarnt hat, dass der Steam-eigene Fragebogen ausgefüllt werden muss, weil die Spiele ansonsten nicht mehr im deutschen Store angezeigt werden. Valve hat die Devs also proaktiv informiert, was in meinen Augen die Verantwortung zurück in die Hände der Devs legt.
And now the english translation via DeepL and modified by me:
Massive change in the Steam store from November 15, 2024!
‘Starting on November 15, 2024, Steam will no longer display games to customers in Germany if the game is missing a valid age rating.’
This will mainly affect indie games that simply don't have the money to buy an age rating from the USK.
However, Valve also speaks of ‘...or it can have one issued by Valve through its own self-rating process’. Perhaps that will be enough and perhaps the indie developers will do this.
However, it can be assumed that many indie developers will not do either and we will no longer see these games from the middle of next month. Since most of the games on Steam are games from small indie developers, it's possible that we won't be able to see or buy thousands of games from next month.
Note: I don't want to see any USK bashing here.
I think it is absolutely right in terms of the protection of minors and youth protection laws that games must have an age rating. It must be ensured that young people and children do not get their hands on games that are not suitable for their age. In most cases, parents do not take on this task as they usually have no idea about digital platforms.
I believe Valve has a duty to revise and update its processes. With a sensible age verification system, all sex games would be visible to us Germans again (Valve is the problem here).
Valve could also directly force indie developers to fill out a Steam-specific form (see above) in order to be allowed to publish their game on Steam at all. The problem would be solved, I think.
Edit: As NB264 pointed out Valve already took action for at least a year and warned indie devs that they should file their questionnaire. So Valve proactively informed the devs, which puts the ball back in the court of the devs.
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