The author is a dolt. From the article:
I don’t want to big up Microsoft for doing slightly more than the bare minimum, but an email I received overnight does at least cast renewed light on how terrible Valve’s approach is. An email from Microsoft regarding my “Microsoft Age Verification Status” had this to say:
“Due to your longstanding account activity, we’ve estimated your profile to be an adult account and updated its age verification status to “Verified.” At this time, you are no longer required to complete further age verification for uninterrupted access to features across certain Microsoft products, including Microsoft and Xbox storefronts.”
That is the whole sum of experience that the author had. Absolutely no mention on how and why microsoft came to the conclusion that he is now an adult. Absolutely no consideration that his own experience could be vastly different than what most users have to endure before they are verified. No consideration that, since the workings of this mechanism are opaque, his status could be revoked at any time.
Very bad article. I feel more stupid after reading it.
Idiot writer doesn’t understand that the point of valve’s method is to piss customers so they act against a law that only seeks surveillance and control. Microslop complying with it that easily (for now) should tell you a lot about them and about their position in this situation.
In what way is Valve’s approach helping? Encouraging piracy? That’s only going to harm the smaller creators and won’t be used in consideration for getting rid of this censorship crap.
Smaller creators? Aus’s laws include M (whatever Aus’s system calls it) rated games, not just porn. The majority of AAA stuff nowadays is rated M, especially when we’re talking about Steam and get to bypass the whole ‘does Nintendo count as AAA’ debate.
EA and Ubisoft and their ilk are probably not happy with this either.
Valve is the biggest pc gaming storefront. Could they just comply and verify you in the easiest way? Certainly. But how is that going to change anything with that shitty law? In fact, by verifying you “easily”, it becomes an issue for Valve itself because in case someone breaks in and steal your data from them, who are you going to blame? The government that made the stupid law? No, probably the middle man: Valve.
Instead, they decided to go through the tough path: Piss everyone and make it an issue for everyone in the chain. The gamer gets angry because they can’t verify without a card. The dev gets angry because they see piracy rise and when they both point at Valve, Valve can just say: Hey, it’s not my fault, ask whoever is doing this stupid law to go back.
Change often comes from hardship, and there’s very few collectives more complacent than gamers; the only way to make them move in any way is inconveniencing them enough. This aims to do that.
Ah yes, we all know that Microsoft is so going to do things correctly. Wtf is this garbage.
