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The German Steam store is facing a major change: from November 15, Valve wants to hide all games that do not have an age rating on their store page. With the change, Steam operator Valve takes into account the reform of the youth protection law that took place in 2021, which requires labeling for gaming platforms. It doesn’t matter what age rating the game will actually receive – what is important instead is how the information is displayed in the store.
“Games without a valid age rating will be hidden from customers in Germany from November 15, 2024.” Valve writes on a support pagethereby independent steam database SteamDB in a Twitter post Tells. The affected titles can no longer be purchased in Germany.
age labeling route
Steam game providers have two options for obtaining a valid age rating. On the one hand, there is the USK classification. It is mandatory for all titles that also appear on data carriers. This is mainly reserved for larger games, but USK also tests fully digital titles in some cases. There is one for all other games steam questionnaireWhich developers can fill freely. Steam then assigns an IARC label to the title based on the answers, which can be displayed on the store page and meets Youth Protection Act requirements.
This is a relatively simple path that any developer can take. A sample from Heise Online shows that most newly released titles, even from smaller studios, already have an IARC age rating on their store page. So these titles will be available even after November 15th. The situation is different with some older indie titles – Heise Online found several examples that currently have no visible age rating on their store page.
“Papers, Please” and “Slay the Spire” Could Fly
These include some absolute indie classics – like renowned solo developer Lucas Pope’s “Return of the Obra Dinn” and “Papers, Please”. If they do not display age ratings on their store pages on November 15, they will be hidden for German users. Some other famous examples of indie titles that currently do not see a label include “Pathologic” and “Pathologic 2”, “Undertale”, “Mini”, “Cave Story”, “FEZ”, and “Slay the Spire” – The list can be continued.
Developers of affected games can fill out the Steam questionnaire at any time and include the resulting age rating on their titles’ store websites. This will be possible even after November 15. But because they have not done so yet, the future of their titles in the German Steam store is open for the time being. For some games it is also possible that the development studio and publisher no longer exist or responsibilities are unclear. Therefore it is feared that the Steam Store in Germany will soon shrink somewhat.
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The Youth Protection Act requires this
Amendments to the Youth Protection Act, which came into effect in 2021, require labeling for digital platforms that distribute movies and video games. Such platforms are allowed to offer games only if they come with “Clearly perceptible mark”.,
This obviously also applies to providers that are not based in Germany. The only exceptions are platforms that clearly have fewer than one million users or generally sell only to adults – this does not include Steam or other large gaming platforms like GOG or Epic Games. The rules that Steam is now implementing with some delay also apply there.
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