Two months after Steam started demanding a credit card before Australians could see R18+ games, Valve has added a second way in. Its Age Assurance in Australia support page now says: “Steam will automatically consider your account age verified if it is at least nine years old and has had a consistent email address or billing information.”
That is good news for people who have been on Steam since 2017 or earlier and have kept the same details. Everyone else, including anyone opening a new account to play upcoming R18+ games, is still stuck with the original option: a credit card, not a debit card. Here’s what has changed, who it helps, and the questions Valve hasn’t answered.
What Valve’s support page now says
The page, marked as “for Australian Users only”, lists three options:
- Automatic verification for accounts at least nine years old with a consistent email address or billing information. You don’t need to do anything to apply for it.
- Add a credit card to your Steam account. Valve says “You are not required to make a purchase using this payment method”, but “a debit card is insufficient for age verification purposes under the Age-Restricted Material Online Safety Codes.”
- Future methods, which have no date: “We understand that not all Australians will be able to verify their age using our existing options. We are looking into other ways to comply with Australia’s age verification rules while also limiting the data we collect and store from users.”
The page also now says “Each Steam account will only need to be age verified once.” That matters because, when the checks began on 9 September, GamingOnLinux and other outlets reported that the card had to stay on the account, and that removing it put the account back to unverified. Valve’s page also repeats that unverified users can keep playing games they already own: “You can continue to play any game that you have purchased.”
When did it change? Valve didn’t announce it. The support page’s own metadata shows its current version was saved on 4 November 2026 (Australian Eastern Daylight Time), and Steam forum posts from 6 November already quote the nine-year wording. It was reported by God is a Geek on 10 November and PC Gamer on 11 November. We checked the live page on Wednesday 11 November.
Who it helps, and who is still locked out
If your account dates from 2017 or earlier and you haven’t changed your email or billing details since, you should now be able to see R18+ store pages and community hubs without adding a credit card. You may still need to turn on mature content in your Steam store preferences; the original block message told users to update their “Mature Content Preferences” after verifying.
The change does nothing for:
- Accounts under nine years old, including brand-new ones. For them the credit card is still the only route.
- Debit-only adults with newer accounts. Valve still says a debit card doesn’t count.
- People whose details have changed. Valve hasn’t defined “consistent”. It hasn’t said whether one email change, a new card or a change of address breaks the nine-year rule, or how long the billing information has to have been on file.
There are also early signs the automatic check isn’t working for everyone. In a Steam community thread started on 6 November, one user said their 13-year-old account wasn’t verified and support kept telling them it needed to be more than nine years old. Another said they were verified after adding a credit card, but lost that status when they removed it, despite the page’s “only once” wording. These are user reports. We haven’t verified them, and Valve hasn’t commented on them.
Why Steam is checking ages at all
The checks come from Australia’s Age-Restricted Material Codes, which were drafted by the online industry and registered by the eSafety Commissioner under the Online Safety Act. According to eSafety’s FAQ, the codes for app stores took effect on 9 March 2026, and age checks for downloading R18+ apps had to be in place before 9 September 2026. For gaming specifically, eSafety says users “will have to complete some form of age assurance to access online games classified R18+ by the Australian Classification Board. For all other games, no age checks are required.”
This is a separate regime from the under-16 social media ban, which The Tech Boom covered when Australia raised the maximum fines for social media platforms. Steam is not being told to remove teenagers. It is being told to keep under-18s away from R18+ games and their pages.
The rules don’t name a method. eSafety lists options including photo ID matching, facial age estimation, credit card checks and digital ID, and its FAQ says that “in order for age checks to be fair, service providers should offer more than one method of age check to users”. It also says ongoing failure to comply with the codes “may result in the service provider facing civil penalties of up to $54.6 million per breach.”
eSafety had already pressed Valve
Valve’s card-only approach drew criticism as soon as it launched. In a statement to Quest Daily in September, an eSafety spokesperson said: “eSafety considers service providers should offer a choice of a range of age assurance methods, giving end-users flexibility and agency in choosing methods that best suit their circumstances”. On 1 October, in a transparency report on Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite and Steam, eSafety said: “Steam is now conducting age checks through credit cards only and eSafety is engaging with the company to seek commitments that it will put in place additional forms of age assurance to give its customers choice.”
Valve now offers two methods instead of one. We couldn’t find any public comment from eSafety on whether that is enough, and Valve hasn’t said whether the change came out of those discussions.
Valve’s support page argues its narrow menu is about privacy: “We don’t sell ads on Steam. We don’t sell our users’ data. We don’t want to start collecting additional sensitive information from our users.” Going by Valve’s description, the new option relies on account history Steam already holds rather than asking users for anything new.
How Xbox and PlayStation compare
Other stores selling R18+ games to Australians offer more ways in. Microsoft says Microsoft Store and Xbox users can verify “including email-based verification, facial age estimation, official document scan and credit card”, through partners Yoti and Verifymy. Sony’s Australian FAQ says PlayStation adult accounts can verify once with a facial scan or ID, through Yoti or Incode. Both of those methods involve a third party, which is the trade-off Valve says it wants to avoid.
What to do now
- Check first. Sign in and open an R18+ game’s store page. If it loads, your account has probably been verified automatically. If you still see the age verification notice, it hasn’t.
- Don’t change your email or billing details just yet if you’re relying on the nine-year rule, at least until Valve explains what “consistent” means.
- If you meet the criteria but aren’t verified, open a ticket through Steam Support and quote the wording on Valve’s Australian page.
- If you add a credit card, you don’t need to buy anything with it. Whether you can safely remove it afterwards is unclear given the user reports above, so check that your verified status survives if you do.
- Your library is safe. Games you already own stay playable whether or not you verify.
Our read
Our read: this is a sensible partial fix. A nine-year-old account with a steady email address is a strong signal that its owner is an adult, and the check needs no new personal data. But it helps the people who were least likely to be children anyway, and it leaves out newer and younger adult players who don’t have a credit card. That’s the group eSafety’s “fairness” point was about. Valve’s own page admits its options don’t cover “all Australians”. The real test is whether option three arrives, and whether it does so before eSafety decides two methods still aren’t enough. We first covered the card requirement when Steam’s age checks went live in September.
This article is based on Valve’s Australian support page (checked on Wednesday 11 November 2026, Australian Eastern Daylight Time), eSafety’s published guidance and statements, and the reports linked above. We will update it if Valve or eSafety say more.
Featured image: the Valve-branded AMD processor inside an LCD Steam Deck, photographed in December 2023 (used for illustration). Photo: FritzchensFritz via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons, released into the public domain under CC0 1.0; resized and converted to PNG. Valve and AMD trademarks are shown for editorial purposes and do not imply endorsement.
