The 23 steps of purchasing my kid a Sony PC game on Steam for Christmas
Back in my day (yep), you got a game for Christmas, you opened the box, you installed it from the physical media in the box, and you played it. 3 steps, roughly, if my counting fingers are still good in my advancing years.
In 2024, you get a PC game for Christmas, and this is what happens:
- Santa purchases a digital license for a game.
- Child receives game and installs it. Parent leaves, thinking child will be happy with their new game.
- Child opens the game, is greeted with a message that they need a Sony account (in addition to their age-appropriate Steam account, which is in addition to their age-appropriate Google account needed to have an email address and their age-appropriate Microsoft account to have access to Windows).
- Child calls for parent that they need a Sony account.
- Parent clicks through "child account creation" page, which requires an adult account to provision.
- Parent forgets their adult Sony login information (we're on a PC, not a PS5), has to look up their credentials, which are locked behind MFA on their phone.
- Parent must satisfy Sony MFA via emailed auth code.
- Parent signs in -- must re-auth email for the adult account (despite MFA already using said email).
- Parent signs up for child account.
- Parent must verify child email by signing into child Gmail account.
- Parent must provide payment info to demonstrate that they are an adult. $0.50 must be charged to their adult-shaped credit card.
- Parent enters credit card info.
- Parent agrees to the $0.50 transaction using newly added credit card.
- Unknown Error
- Parent agrees to $0.50 transaction.
- Unknown Error
- Parent uses semi-child-appropriate curse word ("for crap's sake") signs out of adult account, signs back in, finds where to create a child account, goes back through child account creation, agrees to $0.50 transaction. Success.
- Parent must specify child account settings (age limits, etc). 1 or 2 EULAs here.
- Parent goes back to game, signs in as child with new child account.
- Parent must verify email account with MFA token sent to child account email.
- Error
- Retry. Probably another EULA. Success.
- Child plays game
Literally, this is the process I went through to get Lego Horizon Adventures working on my kids PC via Steam. It was INSANE. I've been gaming my whole life and the way things have gone is just so depressing and so dystopian. It's a goddamn video game. I felt like I was trying to get a car loan!
Obviously the answer here is "just sign up as an adult" or better "don't buy Sony PC games," but this is the "proper" method that Sony wants their PC customers to follow. It's
unhinged. I'm not the type of person to pick a specific game launcher or bandwagon hate on whatever is the hot topic to hate at the moment, but boy howdy did this experience make it plain to me how godawful things have gotten.
I'm thankful most purchases on Steam are NOT like this, but I'm going to be on the lookout for any future titles that are and avoid them like the plague.
