Valve implemented age verification for Australian Steam users earlier this month, which was inevitable: Australian law demands it. Unfortunately, Valve has opted for the most brute force, user-negligent approach possible. To buy R18+ games on Steam in Australia—to even access their store pages—you need to provide a credit card.
The problem being that most Australians don't use credit cards. This study of consumer payment behaviour by the Reserve Bank of Australia bears this out: the share of payments made in Australia with credit or card charges in 2025 was 23% (versus debit cards at 49%).
This is in stark contrast with the US where, according to Bankrate, 74% of adults own a credit card (and nearly half of those are in debt!).
I'm not sure if Valve did its research: perhaps it did and it doesn't...
English (US)