Steam might be a great gaming service, but the store is filled with games that aren’t great for kids, most of which are actual porn. With parents becoming increasingly concerned over their children’s online activity, Steam is reportedly adding parental controls to monitor the gameplay of your kids.
Pavel Djundik, the creator of SteamDB, reported that the company will be adding parental controls in the near future. Although Djundik didn’t give a release date, he did say that these parental controls will be part of a feature called “Family Groups.”
Through parental controls, Steam users will be able to limit the daily playtime of kids, to make sure that they don’t play games too long. Children will also be able to request games from their parents, so it will be up to the adults to confirm if said game is good for their kids.
Considering the amount of actual porn on Steam, having parental controls is far from the worse idea ever. While kids might complain about control being taken away by their parents, this is a good way to make sure they don’t see things they shouldn’t see at this age.
Nintendo has also done this for the Nintendo Switch, with parental controls that also allow parents to set limits for their kids’ game time. Once the given amount of time has been reached, an alarm is triggered and kids should stop playing. If they keep playing after the alarm sounds, parents can choose to make the system interrupt the game, so the kids have no choice but to stop playing.
While video games have become more adult-centric in the last couple of years, there’s no denying that kids are still a major demographic. That’s why Nintendo continues to make Mario games and SEGA does the same with Sonic, even if those games try to grow with their fans. Seriously, Sonic Frontiers has a ton of continuity.
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Steam is widely available on most computers. The Steam Deck is available now and can be purchased online, or in gaming stores.