Earlier in 2024, Valve announced that games being sold in Germany were going to require an Age Rating to continue to be sold, and now there's a deadline.
An update was posted to Valve's official Steamworks documentation (thanks SteamDB), that now makes it clear that game developers have a deadline of November 15th 2024 to ensure an Age Rating is provided. If one is missing, from that date the games simply won't be displayed to Steam customers in Germany.
Developers will need to "truthfully complete Steam's built-in content questionnaire and publish the results". Thankfully Valve has a built-in system for this, so it shouldn't take long for developers to do.
From Valve's FAQ:
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.Q. When do I need to complete this questionnaire by?
A. You can complete the questionnaire at any time. Games without a German age rating will be hidden from customers in Germany starting November 15, 2024.
Q. If I fill out the questionnaire, is my game guaranteed to remain available in Germany?
A. No. There are certain kinds of content that are not allowed for sale to customers in Germany. If present in your game, this content must be disclosed in the content questionnaire. Please complete the questionnaire completely and truthfully. Steam will automatically generate an appropriate rating for your game in Germany. If the generated rating allows, your game will automatically become visible to customers in Germany.
Q. What if my game has a USK rating?
A. If your game has been issued an age rating by going through the rating process directly with USK, you may also enter that information within the store page editor for your game. This is rare. If you do not have an agreement directly with USK, do not enter a USK rating.
Quoting: finaldestWhat would be needed though is an age verification body e,g PEGI to carry out the work. The best way to do this is to give any unrated game an 18 cert until its been reviewed and given the appropriate age rating.
PEGI covers a good chunk of Europe, but not Germany. They've got their own USK. Besides, Valve have already streamlined the process by not requiring an official rating (which costs time and money) and offering a single questionnaire.
Of course, developers are free to get a USK rating as well like the FAQ excerpt in the article says, which should be useful if the game is sold in Germany via other platforms or physical stores. But that takes some time and even the minimum cost of 1200 € (or 300 € for expansions of, game collections with, or "games equivalent to" already rated titles) can be a lot to some indies.
Last edited by tuubi on 3 October 2024 at 6:29 am UTC
Quoting: TarosCan I see somehow which games are invisible to me because of that?
On steamdb.info for sure. It's not yet known how exactly it will look, but probably games will get some new key like 'de_rating' and it will be searchable.
For example here are all games that have a key "foo" with the value "bar" (yes, that's actually a thing
):https://steamdb.info/search/?a=app_keynames&type=-1&keyname=338&operator=1&keyvalue=bar
Quoting: EikeHow about setting all games that are not getting set anything by developers/publishers to 18, the maximum restriction age? Would be far from being unpurchaseable...
Quoting: TheSHEEEPI'd just set all games that haven't been declared by whoever is responsible to be 18+ and be done with it.The highest ratings in Germany are unrated and indexed (well they could get completely banned, too). That is 18+ but with additional constraints, e.g. public display is not allowed. It's up to Valve to finally implement age verification.
Quoting: tuubiBesides, Valve have already streamlined the process by not requiring an official rating (which costs time and money) and offering a single questionnaire.I believe that questionnaire is from the IARC. Valve couldn't streamline the process unless it was officially allowed.
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me