Younger PC games might now need their parents or guardians' permission to let them play on Steam.
That's according to industry expert WickedPlayer494 on Twitter (below), who has spotted changes to JavaScript which reference 'parental consent dialog' and 'parental email'.
It's likely that these changes are to do with the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation laws. It might also be part of the changes that Valve has made behind the scenes with profiles.
It looks like Valve will also require "parental permission" for users of the Steam platform located in the EU like Riot will with LoL, thereby making EU GDPR a super-COPPA. Users suspected to be under 16 may be locked out or otherwise have restricted functionality after Friday.
— wickedplayer494 News (@wp494news) May 24, 2018
This follows Riot telling League of Legends users under the age of 16 that they need parental permission to continue playing as of Friday, when GDPR comes into effect.
Steam and Riot aren't the only game companies to be affected by the forthcoming rollout of GDPR - both Super Monday Night Combat and Loadout have had to close down due to the data protection laws.
Online games store Green Man Gaming has also had to apologise after it sent out a joke email to get users to agree to its new terms; said joke was not met well.
