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Credit Card Required To View 'M' Rated Information
John Callaham writes "Gamecloud has a special feature article titled 'Going Through The Age Gate'. Why are some downloads of game trailers and demos are now requiring that a person declare their age before accessing them?" Not only are some sites requiring you declare your age, Activision is requiring a credit card to view "M" rated game information. From the article: "Asking for a credit card number, even if that the message says it will not be charged, brings up some very serious questions. Why is Activision asking for credit card numbers to access product pages that promote 'M' rated games when the ESRB and every other publisher only use the required 'age gate'?"
Aren't credit cards obtainable only at the age of 18 or greater? If so, this would satisfy the case of being 18 or older to view the content (granted not all 18 year olds or over have credit cards, but this is Activision's loss).
It's pretty obvious why they're doing this--this is classic Cover Your Ass.
Sure, nobody has sued a game publisher over the good ol' fashioned trust system yet--but Activision really doesn't relish the thought of being that lucky test case. Hence, they've decided to close this particular avenue of litigation.
A better question would be to ask whether or not Activision is overreacting to the percieved threat of a lawsuit.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Wouldn't this belong under YRO?
Microsoft passport requires this to access many first-party features, so it isn't somthing new. But the fact you do need to enter a credit card number is disturbing, not just detering people away from the game. Passport stores your number in a database after you enter it; would this?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
And the entire webpage will get 0 visits in .. 5,4,3,2,1...
Sorry but I seriously doubt someone could be naive enough to release a CC just for seing a website. (unless is a payment site or is Actually a KID doing the visit) specially when several websites have the material, I dont really see how this could work in anyway for anyone. (except for hackers to have a grand opportunity at CC farming)
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
very bad idea......one more chance for someone to steal your credit card number and you aren't even BUYING anything from it....it's one thing if i at least was getting something out of the deal, but to just be getting a trailer when they steal it?? that's sad
this is like when companies use your SS number for verification or worse, for your employee ID...it wasn't designed for that and should not be used for that
I just checked out Activision's website ... that's just nuts. Requiring a credit card to access the content of Doom 3? They're only hurting themselves and their sales. I'd NEVER enter my credit card just to access content. Hell, I won't even register for many free websites just to read content that's blocked behind authentication.
Worse yet, they request your credit card number in this small popup with pretty much no supporting text that's helpful in identifying that it's a popup coming from Activision. For all you know, it's a popup from some advertiser phishing for credit card numbers. From the titlebar, you can see that the page uses https, but that's about it. Dumb, dumb move for a company trying to promote their product.
On that note, what is stopping a young teen from going to 7-11, and paying the $10 fee for one of their prepaid credit cards?
What about the people who are over 20 and don't have a credit card because they simply don't want one? Granted that segment of the population is fairly small, but isn't the goal of entertainment companies to entertain everyone they can?
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM