Do not require age verifcation for gated content
VRD
In both the original video and in the recent forum post you said you were likely to require age verification for gated content, e.g sexually suggestive avatars.
Since most avatars in this game are atleast somewhat sexually suggestive, this will either create an immense pressure on people to hand over their ID to a third-party company (which is a horrible idea from a privacy standpoint). Or to just completely ignore the content gating system entirely.
I foresee that people will just stop labeling their avatars as NSFW if you go through with this, rendering the content gating system useless.
It will also create alot of social problems, where friends wont be able to see eachother's avatars, because some friends are more privacy conscious then others.
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MidnightWolfFox
Alot of my friends and I are going to be giving ChilloutVR and Resonite a spin in the near future. ChilloutVR does the 18+ DLC in a brilliant way: Linking it to your steam account. No ID required.
It's sad that it is easier now to buy/play an M-Rated game, Watch an R rated movie, or even access porn; than it will be to play vrchat. The whole system sounds like a pain.
Tsukare
CVR's method doesn't pass muster for many jurisdictions -- Germany (where they're based out of) included. In those places, you simply cannot access R18 content on Steam, CVR's 18+ DLC included - nevermind that Steam isn't a requirement to play VRChat.
Oculus does do their own age verification as well, but I don't know if it exposes it to developers anywhere except the store... Oculus + Steam covers the vast majority of the playerbase, though.
It'd be a slick trick to be able to do age verification primarily via Steam/Oculus, with a fallback to a third party verifier like Persona if unable due to platform or jurisdiction... It would probably ultimately cost VRC less too, compared to paying Persona each user verified.
lackofbindings
If they go forward with the current plan to use Persona I will not be verifying my ID my them. Thus in order to use the platform I would be forced to remove any current content gating tags from even my own content or I would not be able to see it. I think you can extrapolate how this will be a net negative for moderation on the platform.
Oh and let me be clear that I believe age verification in conjunction with content gating could have been a really great thing for vrchat (maybe even eventually allowing true nsfw if gated correctly). But instead we just got a data harvesting scheme.
Dishiwashi
The only reason the vrc Devs are adding something like this is legal reason, cus too many "things" or "incident" have happened between kids and adults and it's noticed over the media.
It's not because of the 18+ content that's on vrchat, they could easily solve that problem by just making the games age rating 18+.
Look at it this way, kids play GTA 5, that has all the adults stuff vrchat has, only difference is kids "interacting & socialising" with adults.
So apparently making worlds, labeling accounts and avatars 18+ will solve this? Nopes.
No one is going to make a public 18+ world ever, all public's will still be normal, meaning kids and adults will still mix together. No one is gonna label themselves 18+ and people already don't put 18+ labels on their models.
The only reason ppl might want to age verify is so they can join private events or friends who have put the restriction on. Otherwise, it's not gonna happen.
(Unless they somehow make it mandatory to verify your age, I can't see this benefiting their intentions of age verifying and just cause more problems. Just make the games age limit 18+ and stop worrying orrrrr make a 18+ only version of vrchat which you HAVE to age verify to even play the game. This way it's ONLY adults in the game. But this also still doesn't stop adults being in the kids version, see my point as it being a problem they can't solve)
MidnightWolfFox
Dishiwashi They did say that in the future (I'm guessing mid to late 2025) that all new accounts being opened for vrchat WILL REQUIRE age verification. They may even flip their promise around and require us that have an account to verify.
Again, I'm guessing early 2026 it will be mandatory for all. I feel confident because in early 2023; I predicted age verification coming; I just had no idea how much of an intrusive pain vrchat's version was going to be!
GotoFinal
MidnightWolfFox They cant require age verification from everyone... as they want to remain 13+ game for all the mobile money.
And there isn't really any system to verify age of children.
Dishiwashi
MidnightWolfFox exactually what GotoFinal said, they can't "Force" you to age verify as the games official rating is 13+ also, that would mean yee, any children with an account already, would have their account locked because they can't verify, which at that point just make the game an 18+
like that would be crazy, so in 2016 its mandatory of you to verify you are 18+ for a game thats 13+ ??? logic where? I'm amazed they haven't been forced to changes to games age ratting for years, as they literally allow NSFW content (in the avatar upload, select NSFW) like what? your checking a box, which is to say your content is not suitable for the games 13+ age rating, yet we will allow you to? as long as its labelled?
ᴋᴀᴡᴀ
I believe they going to implement that anyways, like we or not.
Because of strict iOS platform rules and general "soy" trends.
Now I feel like this was a whole point of verification.
Like to hold a can of virtual beer? Papers, please.
So, I guess we need a compromise: https://feedback.vrchat.com/age-verification/p/feature-request-expose-verification-status-and-gating-options-to-avatars-and-wor
ᴋᴀᴡᴀ
Also, isn't this whole verification system was presented as a tool for group of adults to make them sure they all are adult?
And now whole conversation was shifted to "proof you adult if you want to deal with adult content" like huh? �
VRD
ᴋᴀᴡᴀ Yes that is what they originally stated, however if you read their latest blogpost https://ask.vrchat.com/t/age-verification-faq/28458 They state that age verification will do 3 things:
1. Access to Age Verified instances
2. Access to the Age Verified badges, including the “Verified 18+” badge if you are 18 or older
3. Likely in the future: Integration with a Content Gating system
It is this last part I and many others take an issue with, we do not want the social problems of gating avatars behind ID verification.
People should not be preassured to give their ID to a 3rd company just to see some 3d models.
ᴋᴀᴡᴀ
VRD Yes 😭
MidnightWolfFox
VRD I think it's time for a lot of us to learn the intricacies of Resonite very, very soon....
ᴋᴀᴡᴀ
Yes, this is legit assumption. Even now and for a while some ppl rejected to mark their content for similar reasons - afraid of their content being available to less ppl.
VRD
ᴋᴀᴡᴀ They outright stated '3.Likely in the future: Integration with a Content Gating system' in their latest blog post https://ask.vrchat.com/t/age-verification-faq/28458
Content gating refers to the tags on avatar when you upload them, such as 'sexually suggestive' or 'gore'
So no its not really assumption or speculation, it is something they want to do. This canny post is to tell them its a bad idea
Myrkur
I personally have to agree with the ideas on this, I for one will not be verifying my age after looking into persona as a company from a data protection standpoint they have a not so clean record in their country of operation such as with these two ongoing cases one example even using company data within AI training.
Johnson v. Persona Identities, Inc.
Washington v. Persona Identities, Inc.
FoxSasha
The content is already gated behind labels. When using a Meta account to use a quest, if the account linked is not over 18, the content is already locked.
So this is already in play to a point. And personally, I'd rather have that enabled across the entire platform with verification. Not just in the manner of "Sexual content" not all of us are focused on that, there are some topics on avatars that don't need to be visible to underage.
Example: Drugs, how many people drunk or high, and have something on the avi to help encourage the part? Violent themes are rated by the ESRB for games, and VRC, while is a social platform, is still also a game.
Its the same thing as if a kid tries to goto an R movie or buy a shooter game, there SUPPOSED to be ID'ing them to give that access. Id rather VRC actually step up and do the right thing in this case.
Betty The Bat
I'm more worried that they whana know even more about us and who we are. Devs already using a lot of data. They collecting a lot of data about us while we play... Why do you need even more?
Laxy
This is not a good idea
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