In an interesting move Australia has moved to introduce an age verification system for people under 18 playing online mature games and playing other 18+ rated games such as GTA Online. This system will require people to verify their ID using a third party system such as in other age verification systems across the internet in order to play.
How do I feel about this? Honestly to me this seems a bit extreme, but I get where it’s coming from. Kids should not be playing 18+ games like GTA Online, this is not new information, but they clearly do anyway. The idea is that stores should be relying on the ESRB rating and checking the ID of kids who buy these games first, but we all know that in these instances parents just end up buying the game for the kids and that’s even in instances where the stored can be bothered to even ID check these kids. In our increasingly digital age of downloading and purchasing games online you don’t even have these checks anymore, you can just say you’re 18 and download them no problem.
So there’s clearly a problem here, however I don’t think this is the solution. Mainly because kids will just borrow/steal their parents ID to give to the system in order to play, just like if they got their parents to buy the game from the store for them, and instead a whole bunch of innocent people will need to give their ID to a shady third party software to play games they were already well within the age for playing. And even if they don’t do this and get around the system this way, kids can just use a VPN to get around the block. It all smacks of a simple, but ineffective solution that just hurts normal consumers while claiming it helps children. I was all for Austrialia’s social media ban for under 16’s, that’s a ban that requiring ID makes sense for as it is intrinsically tied to your own identity, but for something like this I’m not sure.
What are your thoughts on this system? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments below. That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.