Games giant Valve has introduced age verification for UK Steam users thanks to the country's Online Safety Act. 

The news was spotted by users on social media – and reported by VGC – and has been detailed on the company's website. Consumers in the UK have want to buy "mature" to have a credit card registered to their account in order to prove that they are over the age of 18. Users that already have a credit card attached to their account don't need to do anything else. 

Steam isn't the only platform impacted by this new legislation; Discord has started to verify the age of its UK users, as have non-games platforms like Reddit. 

"In the UK, Ofcom is the independent regulator for online safety," Valve wrote. 

"Ofcom's guidance on the OSA states that one highly effective age assurance measure is credit card checks. This is because, in the UK, an individual must be at least 18 years of age to obtain a credit card, therefore credit card issuers are obliged to verify the age of an applicant before providing them with a credit card.

"Having the credit card stored as a payment method acts as an additional agent against circumventing age verification by sharing a single Steam user account among multiple persons."