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You ask the users for their date of birth on signup, don't tell them that it will be used for age-gating features (to avoid incentivizing lying), and don't allo
by jsnell 4y ago
You ask the users for their date of birth on signup, don't tell them that it will be used for age-gating features (to avoid incentivizing lying), and don't allow the date to be changed without some kind of age verification.
Or you use the social graph to infer age: somebody who mainly plays with 10 year olds is probably also about 10. If they claim to be 20, require an id anyway.
Non-gaming companies deal with this all the time. It's annoying, but shouldn't require blazing any new trails.
- ApolloFortyNine 4y ago10 year olds aren't as dumb as you're assuming here, they'd either make a new account, or have already been been putting an 18+ birth date for years. All anyone cares about is covering their own ass, so it'd solve that issue, but it would have neglibile effect on anything real. Source: Used the internet when I had to lie to every site about being over 13, so lied to every site about being over 13. Also vrchat requires being 13+, and boy, does 'requiring' it not accomplish anything at all.
- emodendroket 4y agoWe all know this can be bypassed but it is still the strategy pursued by a lot of services where some or all content is not appropriate for kids.
- TheBrokenRail 4y agoYeah, Google thinks I'm 31 years older than I actually am.
- PurpleRamen 4y agoIt doesn't matter whether some will circumvent the age-gate. The company made an attempt, and enough kids are blocked by it, this is a good enough for the law, at the moment. But Epic is not willing to even walk this short way...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- robswc 4y agoWhat is the point then? It would be like a bar tender asking if you're 21 and letting you drink if you just reply "yes." Regulators would be happy though because "at least you tried?" I get its just trying to shift the burden onto the parents and the "lying child" but at the end of the day it just seems like it would collectively waste so many hours.
- PurpleRamen 4y agoThe point is that it's better than no having no solution. Not every kid is lying, not every kid is on its own. That we need a better solution, does not invalidate usage of the existing in the meantime.
- robswc 4y ago>The point is that it's better than no having no solution IMO, I just feel like it wastes too much time to justify itself. Hundreds of thousands of hours spent on a solution that relies entirely on the (unreliable) respondent.
- HDThoreaun 4y agoYou're saying this like it's bad but I'm not sure it is. If kids want to use voice chat they can, all they have to do is lie about their age. Default off for children is a good policy, and allowing them to get it around it with some effort probably is too. Seems like what's important here is that unsuspecting children aren't thrown into voice chat and immediately called the n word or something. If the kids are prepared to be bullied then they can go ahead with voice chat.
- breezeitall 4y agoSo are we all forced to have a signup at the start to not get sued? Can't just have a mobile/browser game that tracks basic data?
- Dalewyn 4y agoIt is federal law that taking any data from children under 13 requires prior authorization from the parents/guardian. If your code takes any data, you must verify the end user's age and, if they are underage, provide a way for the parents/guardian to contact you for giving authorization. Yes, we all know kids lie when they see the age verification, but the presence of age verification moves the liability away from the developer/publisher and onto the parents/guardian of the underage kid. Obligatory IANAL.