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Steam Support Answer from 2023 on Adult Only Content Region Block in Germany
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Volva*™ (C)
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Apr 23, 2023 @ 3:10am
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"Back in 2021 Steam started region blocking every single game that hadnt received a USK rating (German Rating Board).
So I asked Steam Support if there would be a better solution to this than blocking an entire country from "viewing and purchasing*" that content.
This was their answer back in 2021. - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2539193514

I talked about this on and off and actually decided not to message Steam Support again because its near useless talking to them.
On a whim I changed my mind in 2023 and messaged them anyway. You know, its been over two years and Germany is still getting region blocked when it comes to adult or unrated content.

This is the full response from Steam Support.
I would like to point out that the message I received in 2023 is an exact copy paste from the message I got in 2021.

Not only is Steam Support, a system thats supposed to help you, answer questions you might have, you know, support you, giving you dismissive answers but they also just straight up lie to your face.
Dont give me that copy paste ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and just say how it is. That you dont have a solution, that you cant do ♥♥♥♥ about it.
I'd be more happy to hear you tell me to piss off than whatever this garbage response is.

Then they basically say its the responsibility of the developer or publisher if they want to make their game available in Germany.
And while that is true you'd think Valve and Steam wouldnt just leave the people trying to sell their games, basically making them money too, hanging like this.

To get a game rated developers or publishers have to pay up to 3000€. For clearly adult games to be told that they can only be sold to adults.
So why cant unrated games just automatically be for adults only? Because that way developers or publishers wouldnt have to pay a nearly useless rating board. Great system.

And you know whats the punch line with this German region block? Its entirely useless.
Yeah, I cant see the store page and cant buy the game myself but I can still view the hub of those games.
I can still see all the adult only content other users upload, like screenshots.
I can simply get a friend thats not in Germany to gift me the content thats not available to me as well.

Yes, little 12 year old Christian can still get his anime tiddies by just asking some other guy to buy it for them.
You know, like we did back in the day when we wanted alcohol but werent old enough. We just got someone that was allowed to buy it to get it for us.

A useless system that doesnt work and only complicates matters. Welcome to rating boards."
11 Comments
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Streifi Jul 23, 2024 @ 12:20pm 
And yes, there should be more transparency. Since the adult game ban I see many people (worldwide) shifting the blame around. "Steam hates their customers" they say or "Steam hates adult games" or "The Germans are at fault for voting for a government that takes away their liberties and adult games", because most people aren't even aware why the games aren't accessible in Germany. Most people also got the idea, that those games were "illegal" around here, which they aren't. That's what a lack of communication brings: Confusion, false ideas and the shifting of blame, which also makes it way harder to find out if there are actual options to change how the system currently works (or ceases to work, as it currently is).
Streifi Jul 23, 2024 @ 12:20pm 
Yes, I still like Steam alot myself, otherwise it wouldn't be my number one go-to gaming platform.

As for the reason for the geo-blocking, I can only assume that they sadly are either to lazy to implement age restriction, or because they think it would be too costly to do that for one country only, even if I think that the revenue they get for games sold would be higher and compensate for the investment multifold.
Volva*™ (C)  [author] Jul 23, 2024 @ 5:02am 
But its been years without any major improvements towards lifting this restrictive environment.
Steam Support can feed me their copy paste all they want but if nothing changes, they arent doing anything.
The biggest complaint with Valve in general is that they dont tell anyone whats going on.

Users just randomly find out about these changes and get incredibly confused and frustrated at Valve and Steam when they might not even be at fault themselves.
In my opinion they should be open and public about this and point its own users in the right direction to get things changed.

Its unfortunate that they just dont care and shrug their shoulders.
Volva*™ (C)  [author] Jul 23, 2024 @ 5:02am 
Steam is a great platform. People can say about Steam Greenlight and Steam opening the floodgates by allowing basically anything on it as a negative but I always saw less restrictions as a positive.

Steam still has tools to let other users know when something isnt good and doesnt deserve to be on the platform, we have reviews informing customers etc.

So I really dont understand their stance on this country wide restriction, pushing the responsibility on developers and publishers for age ratings.
I feel like they should be working together with the people that actually bring business to their platform to resolve issues like this restrictiveness and maybe they do that to some extend, I dont really know.
Streifi Jul 23, 2024 @ 4:34am 
And yet, the restrictions are indeed disheartening. Germany also already employed web blockages before, and with certain specific laws, where even mentioning a certain male body part online can lead to a raid... The golden age of the internet for Germans may be in the past, if we ever even got there in the first place... says me who still suffers from internet delivered by a copper cable, because our ISPs are too lazy to upgrade that old tech properly. The same ISPs also tried 2013 to limit "flatrate" bandwidth by making unlimited internet more expensive, causing the whole "net neutrality" debate to flare up. Luckily that experiment died quickly. So if you ask me, I can totally see restricted internet times in the future. And then everybody wonders why Germany ceases to attract high tech companies... But I guess it those company's fault for not using fax machines anymore. But I digress...
Streifi Jul 23, 2024 @ 4:34am 
I couldn't agree more. It's just ridiculous. Steam obviously only introduced those rating systems at all, because they're inexpensive for them and all the work falls on the developers, who basically have to self-report at this point. Just because Germany wants those ratings and doesn't care for the minimum age of Steam users and Steam couldn't care less about that either.

But sooner or later somebody might get wise that those ratings alone mean nothing without making sure people below the set age can't access those titles. And we already know how Steam intends to solve those "problems"... Ugh...
Volva*™ (C)  [author] Jul 23, 2024 @ 4:06am 
I 100% agree with everything.

This additional age rating system to have games evaluated for 6 year olds also makes no sense from the get go as the minimum age to even have a Steam account according to Steams own Subscriber Agreement says: "You may not become a Subscriber if you are under the age of 13."

Who is this age rating for if it isnt even allowed to have a Steam account under the age of 13?

I also find it disheartening to browse games on Steam.db and seeing my country, Germany, a democratic first world country, displayed right next to China when it comes to restricted countries.

Restricted country isnt something I would think of when I hear Germany but when it comes to the internet we are no better than China.
Whats next? Implementing laws that restrict how long I can be on the internet for?

All of this is nothing short of ridiculous and disappointing.
Streifi Jul 23, 2024 @ 3:36am 
It's basically censorship at this point. And I fear it only will get worse from here...

TL;DR:
Sorry for the rant, but I've been reading stuff on this topic on and off for years now and nobody seems to get ever closer to a good solution, certainly not our politicians or Steam itself. And it's just horrible to feel this powerless because there's nothing we can do to change this situation but to sit and wait and hope and hope has become a rare commodity these days.
Streifi Jul 23, 2024 @ 3:36am 
As we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In the end those intentions only punish mature and responsible people, while barely help to protect those people they were supposed to protect.

Given that Steam has recently been forced to introduce an additional age rating system, while STILL not implementing an age verification system, it's safe to assume that maybe even more games will vanish from the German storefront. Maybe even all games that don't have no age limit, because even if a game was rated for six year olds, without age verification system you can't even prove that you're that old. Maybe you're five and a half years old and use the family library, better not to offer those games at all... That seems to be Steam's modus operandi for Germany for over 4 years now and it's really pissing me off, because it's lazy, it's patronizing and it helps nobody, not the kids, not Steam, not the developers and of course not the totally of-valid-age customers.
Streifi Jul 23, 2024 @ 3:35am 
Today it's even more simple, as technology progresses at an alarming rate and kids and adolescents are way more tech-savvy than we were back then.

In this sense it totally makes sense, that the lawmakers want to make sure kids and adolescents are better protected. Still, the majority of the responsibility for this falls onto the parents and/or educators. Schools should teach media competency and parents should check in on their kids, at least where online-shops are involved. I have no sympathy for the preventive detention that gets expanded to the entire population due to these misguided efforts to protect the innocence of young minds. Because we all know in the end, that none of those efforts work to 100%, and just to make sure they might still be efficient, everybody gets to suffer from those misguided efforts.