Age Verification for Steam rolls out in Australia requiring a Credit Card

No credit card here. Hopefully they accept my 21 year old Steam account as verification enough

Why would anyone want a credit card, isn't that the one where they allow you to spend more than you have and then charge enormous fees for the negative balance? Debit card is convenience, credit card is a trap. It's a stupid requirement.

BTW what if I purchase the game elsewhere and activate the key, would I be allowed to play it? I'm guessing yes?
Seems that Valve is throwing cash in the gutter because their lawyers didn't know any better.

Yuck, I hate credit cards. Like what do you mean I cannot use my own money that I have in my own account? I have to borrow money? But it's not Valve that makes these Orwellian laws.

Apparently people are reporting that adding a Debit card works fine. Which kind of defeats the purpose 😆

Quoting: drmothApparently people are reporting that adding a Debit card works fine. Which kind of defeats the purpose 😆

That was a bug in the UK rollout, so it seems it came back again 😅

The solution would have been so easy if policy makers simply demanded that any payment be flagged with an age group so it can only be paid with an account that fits the requirement. Nothing else would have had to change since banks are required to keep that information anyway and it removes all excuses from individual companies to do data harvesting.

At least there will be more Cyberpunk sales on GOG 😁

But for real: good luck with applying that everywhere. It's ridiculous.

Quoting: bradgyNo credit card here. Hopefully they accept my 21 year old Steam account as verification enough

This must work. I don't have any payment method linked to my account (and don't have a credit card), I just sign into Paypal every time.

Edit: I still get the warning about mature content in the accounts page but it doesn't seem to actually affect anything.

Last edited by seflasporin on 9 Sep 2026 at 10:47 am UTC

Quoting: pbWhy would anyone want a credit card, isn't that the one where they allow you to spend more than you have and then charge enormous fees for the negative balance? Debit card is convenience, credit card is a trap. It's a stupid requirement.

I wish my niece and her friends felt this way. They are all charging tons of stuff to credit cards to live it up because they think we're all doomed anyway, so that it won't ultimately matter down the road. And from what I can tell this seems to be a pretty wide sentiment amongst Gen-Z, at least in the US. I can completely understand why they feel that way, though I think they will be buried in crippling debt and ruined credit before society inevitably collapses.

Quoting: pbWhy would anyone want a credit card, isn't that the one where they allow you to spend more than you have and then charge enormous fees for the negative balance? Debit card is convenience, credit card is a trap. It's a stupid requirement.

It's also where they don't get direct access to your bank account. A credit card allows you to dispute any transaction before you potentially lose money from it. It sucks if you don't have the will power to not buy things you can't afford, but at least you still have next month's rent money.

Quoting: pbWhy would anyone want a credit card, isn't that the one where they allow you to spend more than you have and then charge enormous fees for the negative balance? Debit card is convenience, credit card is a trap. It's a stupid requirement.

Only speaking for myself, I basically use my credit card like a debit card. The thing is I would have to pay fees to use debit, whereas I get cashback from using my credit card for free ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You have to pay fees to use a debit card? What kind of backwards system is that?

Quoting: VigilIt's also where they don't get direct access to your bank account. A credit card allows you to dispute any transaction before you potentially lose money from it. It sucks if you don't have the will power to not buy things you can't afford, but at least you still have next month's rent money.

Here in Canada (and presumably this is an imported US thing), some banks issue dual usage cards, that are debit cards, drawing directly from your chequing account, but with a credit card number attached, so you can use them for online purchases that require CCs without actually having 'credit':

(External Link: You need to be logged in to view this.) for example, though all the major companies seem to have an equivalent.

I've never had one (my credit union never got on that train), and my Dad explicitly asked for that 'feature' to be disabled on his entirely (which they can do), since he's one of the types that used to send me listings for parts online, asking me if I'd be OK using my credit card to buy them for him, and he'd pay me back in cash or with a direct transfer, since he didn't trust online shopping that much (but good luck getting that specific spare part for his 80s Bang & Olufsen hifi otherwise...). 😅 Honestly, Dad, you're kind of right...

So it's be interesting to know if those hypothetically counted, but yeah, for the longest time, if you weren't getting Steam keys in a physical game purchase (hi, Skyrim and HL2), your only real option for buying games on Steam was with a credit card. Eventually they started selling gift cards and third party key resellers showed up, of course.

Political aside under spoiler:

Spoiler, click me

I used to be mad at specific things like how predatory high interest rates on these cards are, or the transaction fees that haven't changed since we used to pay $0.15 or more *per text message* on our phones, but at this point I've gone as far as understanding all of capitalism itself is the problem, full stop, and wish we could burn it all down and start over. 🤷

Quoting: seflasporinYou have to pay fees to use a debit card? What kind of backwards system is that?

One where certain wealthy corporations would prefer you use credit cards, in the hopes that you will fail to pay them off every month and in the certain knowledge that they charge the shops a percentage, which debit cards do not.

Quoting: pbWhy would anyone want a credit card, isn't that the one where they allow you to spend more than you have and then charge enormous fees for the negative balance? Debit card is convenience, credit card is a trap. It's a stupid requirement.

I have never paid a cent of credit card interest in my life, but I still use mine really regularly. Try buying stuff online without one, for starters. Or travel to another country and try to buy stuff there. Also, debit cards typically come with a stupidly low daily limit even if your income is high, so try to buy anything expensive, anywhere.

That being said, expecting people to have one and offer zero alternative to verify your age or also pretty dumb. A lot of people don't have one or don't want one. Personally, I prefer that to these shady trust-me-bro verification services that seem to constantly lose your personal data they're not supposed to keep in the first place, though.

my steam account is 15 years old, hopefully valve won't pretend i created it when i was a newborn.

Quoting: pbWhy would anyone want a credit card, isn't that the one where they allow you to spend more than you have and then charge enormous fees for the negative balance? Debit card is convenience, credit card is a trap. It's a stupid requirement.

many countries allow you to have credit card only when you are legally adult

This must be an American thing. In Europe credit cards aren't as popular the way they seem to be over there, you certainly don't get charged or limited on debit card usage.

Last edited by seflasporin on 9 Sep 2026 at 3:21 pm UTC

Quoting: KithopPolitical aside under spoiler:

Spoiler, click me

I used to be mad at specific things like how predatory high interest rates on these cards are, or the transaction fees that haven't changed since we used to pay $0.15 or more *per text message* on our phones, but at this point I've gone as far as understanding all of capitalism itself is the problem, full stop, and wish we could burn it all down and start over. 🤷

While I don't blame capitalism itself, I agree with your sentiment. If enough people, and you don't need more than a few percent (at least of the USA), would stop shoveling their hard earned money into the corpo's mouths ASAP that would crash and burn the system. General boycott is what I've been preaching and practicing since the 2007/8 madness. It obviously hasn't worked, but I have enough savings to buy a house cash if/when I decide to. And I have the peace of mind knowing I barely contributed to "the system".

The idea is: general boycott (obviously you need shelter/food/etc, but most of the other stuff can be avoided) leads to lower corpo revenue. Which leads to layoffs. Which leads to even less spending kicking off a deflationary death spiral. If the people keep it up, it can usher in a global depression.

Now, that sounds horrible (and it would be), but I honestly feel like most people won't ever do anything to fix the current system and will need to be "motivated". And a proper depression might snap some people out of their distractions. So now that everyone is paying attention, communities can figure out how they want to move forward. I think the only important parts are a blind justice system and sound money. Everything else is basically downstream of those 2 simple concepts.

And even if a depression sounds horrible, the alternatives are MUCH worse. Any idiots calling for civil wars and such have no idea what war is really like.