Rockstar Games Plans Age Verification For GTA Online

GTA online is the worst thing to happen to the series, since it killed off story DLCs. Which were a fantastic way to get new story based content for their games between the years long wait between sequels. Damn those gamers and their obsession with buying microtransactions.

Then they double killed it when they started introducing nonsense like flying cars with rocket launchers.
- Don't forget when they triple killed it by not enabling Proton support.
On the flip side, it's given it insane longevity and made it feel more modern. Playing singleplayer feels so annoying at times because of their arbitrary rules (which are still in online, but toned down a little) and gameplay/mission design.
At least GTAO showed everyone rockstar's true nature, and you couldn't turn away or say that it's a small alternative game mode.
So shoutout to online and 5 as a whole for showing me enough to avoid all future rockstar titles lol
- GTA5 was released in 2013. GTA6 is being released 13 years later. If there had been no GTAO, we would have had at least one or two more "modern" GTA releases in that window.
I don’t understand why people needed to give them constant money. For real, I played for a minute but never spent a dime. Why buy things when you can achieve them?
- To be honest I regret spending so much time earning money and buying so many cars. It would have been more fun riding around in a stolen piece of trash robbing liquor stores with a friend than grinding the bank heist over and over.
- Because it's extremely annoying to earn enough money. Payouts are pathetic and things are extremely expensive to push you towards buying money. I didn't spend any money on it thankfully, that's just my reasoning behind it.
- Because number go up. lol
  Also everything is insanely expensive in online.
Unfortunately, the online component easily becomes a profitable sideline. Sarcastically, it's what keeps some game corporation CEOs afford their lifestyles.
- I fucking hate how there is starvation and homelessness in the world, at the same time as there is morons blasting cash away into imaginary online points.

They would lose likely 98% of their player base.

maybe the goal is instead to try to get ahead of regulation by implementing a system that is easily bypassed by most kids (like these video based age estimations). Then they can show this to the regulator and be like: "look were already doing everything we can, no need to actually put the regulation in place".
Maybe that actually makes it playable. But who am I kidding?
Seriously. Our school had a presentation by a guy about kids and computer usage. The gist of it was: Roblox bad, because of paedophiles. GTA good, because it furthers role playing. Basically the opposite of the age recommendations.
- Welll...Depends on if you install mods I guess?
more like 99%
$omething tells me that won't happen

Isn't GTAV an 18 rated game? So children shouldn't be able to buy it in the first place.

This falls on the parents instead because of dumb laws every one has to deal with this, I just hope that not all countries are this insane:
users in the UK have had to take photos of themselves and upload it to a service that uses AI to guess their age. Or, send in photos of ID such as passports or driving licenses.
- The problem needs to be addressed at the root, make making children illegal !
The point is to make children used to checks.
It's a didactic law.
IRL usually children grow up feeling they are free (except for their parents) to an extent.
This is intended so that identifying yourself in the Internet were normal by the time you grow up for it to matter.
But, of course, there might be some good considerations, if you're into playing devil's advocate. People might remember which stupid shit they were posting when they were younger, and want for future generations to be always conscious of the difference between pseudonymity and anonymity, and superficial anonymity vs real. People might want to make it so that nobody had a false sense of security, leading to really bad mistakes. People might want this to be the step preceding some way to fight bots.
And they might even not have good considerations, but eventually realize that the oppressive system they are building is best rebuilt for something better and used differently. Wouldn't be the first time in history.
It's just that laying down your arms in hopes for that is unwise.
It's M rated. M ratings are 17+ the ESRB rating for 18+ is AO.
M ratings are for minors, AO is for adults.
You need to ID to buy an AO game, you do not for M unless it's a individual store policy.
Due to anti porn sentiment and stores refusing to carry porn. Only 24 games have ever gotten the AO rating
It's considered a death flag.
It's much like how the Deadpool movie was R rated instead of pg13. This was considered a huge risk cause R rates movies don't make money was the common theory.
But even then R rating is also for minors. Movies have the NC-17 rating which is for 18+ and thus only adults. This would be the AO rating in games.
Stores and public facing businesses are so piss scared of having adult rated content even if it's not porn, just because of the vague idea that adult only content HAS to be porn cause "what else would it be"
That rating systems have undermined their very purpose and become fucking useless. It's why everything is only M rated instead of being AO when it really should be.
- It's not really relevant as the UK rating system doesn't have M or AO clarifications. The game is rated 18 so it's for adults only.

So, I loose no functionality when I pirate it?

Wrong. You "lose" the age verification feature.
You might not be able to connect to FiveM servers, which IMO is a major loss. FiveM is the real GTA V.

If they roll this out to my country, I'm just not buying any of their games. My privacy is worth a lot more than that.

I might still play them, I just won't buy them, because I'm not doing age verification.

If we're going to government age verification everywhere just get rid of fucking ESRB and content ratings

If we’re going to government age verification everywhere just get rid of fucking ESRB and content ratings
This is a game made in Scotland, ESRB is a voluntary US based system.
- PEGI, then.
- Yes, it’s voluntary and self-imposed by the game industry to avoid exactly this kind of nanny-state bullshit. Ergo, if governments proceed with the bullshit anyway, then there’s no longer a need for the ESRB or PEGI.
- Made even sillier because Rockstar isn't a government.
Or just start fucking using the AO rating.
GTA should have a fucking AO rating but because of money no game gets more then an M rating making the entire system pointless.
- Exactly. What's the point of AO is all major retailers pledged 20 years ago that they won't sell it? AO is basically a sales ban

Can you even call it GTA online if there aren't a dozen 12 year olds running around screaming, "N***** and F*****".

Moms are still getting plenty of action though, right? Wont someone think of the moms!!!!
- I'm thinking of your mom right now don't worry maboy.
Can you call it that when chat is disabled anyway ; D

Maybe I'm dating myself but this is the same company that released state of emergency for the PS2? That game you could literally mow down people in a mall with a mini gun?

They were worried about "the children?" News to me.

They have way more investors to jerk off and please now
My mum enjoyed the bonus level in the mall where you could just kill like 100 people as fast as you could.
Her favourite weapon is the flamethrower.
Her first reaction to the game was "that's disgusting", but I let her have a go and suddenly she was toasting a whole crowd and loving every minute of it.
- That's disgusting!
  Where can I find more!
I remember when me neighbour got Bully, another Rockstar game
I mean the whole "ban gta" movement was started by rockstar themselves. They riled up the masses about how dangerous gta is, and it worked. The moms hopped onto the train and the whole movement gained momentum and the made billions.

And nothing of worth was lost

With the reputation most companies have with leaking and breached data, who wouldn't want to have their ssn and license on file with rock star games?!

Is it even hard ro find someone's SSN anymore?
- Not really, the assholes used the last four of it for college emails in the 2000s FFS.

The thing with age verification is that I don't think it's a bad thing if done securely, but still it still makes me sad, because Internet will never be the same with it. In the end it will be only few big websites who can afford to care about Internet regulation.

Well, after all maybe it's time to switch to Gemini protocol, they are not going to regulate that!

age verification is just a BS strawman. do you remember when we where young? we would access stuff and find ways to buy stuff. but whenever there was a reasonable but fair gap, it would be much harder to get whatever we wanted: buying weed was so much easier, than buying alcohol (without the appropriate age).
pirating is easy (even i figured it out before having enough money to buy movies & games). so the kids will just pirate that stuff and get their way anyway. age verification at the store makes so much more sense. sure, there are ways to circumvent those. but it is a reasonable stop block.
- When I couldnt buy digital stuff because of age restrictions (e.g. game shops) I at one point figured out that Steam doesnt do that and you could get Paysafecards to buy them this way.
  No need for paypal (which needs an online banking enabled SEPA account or credit card) or a credit card.
- Don't see how pirating well overcome the online age check.
Parents will just have their kids play on their accounts. This only hurts the average person who now needs to worry about who has that information and how it's secured.
- If that's true its going to be funny when the account gets banned because of something kiddo did
I though google's assistant Gemini

guess ill be pirating the next one, since there will be no online mode.

Same exact thought.

Phew, ok good. A few months ago, when this first leaked, it made it seem like this was going to be used for every country and for the entire game. I have never played GTA online and never will.

The internet is continuing to get worse and worse... also, those comments on the actual article were strangely to pro.

and i plan to pirate GTA

The same parents that allow their children to play these games now will allow them to play then.

This will just make me not want to play these games.

I'm already boycotting rockstar, just make offline games and stop with the invasive bs

Now my money is going to indie developers

(almost) every game is an offline game if you pirate it ;)

I hope they don't block VPN access.

They absolutely will

What about disabling the shitty anti-cheat or even just enabling it on Linux so I, as a 27yo, can play the damn game?

Im bout to crash out this is absolutely the most stupidest idea ever. Anyone should be able to play this game regardless of age.

If the game isn't rated AO it shouldn't have an age verification.
R rating is fucking 17+ not 18+. R rating is still for minors.
If your game needs an age rating then you shouldn't be allowed to have an R rating straight to AO for you.
Oh what's that visa won't let you sell your AO rated game?
Too fucking bad.
Maybe find a better solution then. ):<

I wouldn't mind not having to play with children. But it's a privacy issue