Paywalling age verification is insane
Verebat
I'm a casual VR chat player for many years. I am an adult, and I enjoy being a part of mature spaces. It would seem that VRChat expects players to pay if they want to officially prove they are an adult.
The distinction between wanting to support the game and its developers and gaining access to fun features is starkly different from being paywalled out of being able to prove you're an adult.
You can pay $10 for one month of Plus to complete the verification - a reasonable ask for many who enjoy the game and wish to support it. However, the notion that anyone MUST pay to prove they are an adult is terrible. The implication is that you are a minor if you don't have Plus.
I fully support age verification and have paid for a month of Plus to support this game, however, the developers need to seriously reconsider their approach here.
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Docteh
From VRChat's perspective it looks like this:
* Initially they offered age verification slots to certain groups, to test the feature. "If you're a member of certain groups, you can do the age verification process"
* About a month or two later they offered it to VRC+ subscribers. https://hello.vrchat.com/blog/age-verification
* The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) there states "Age Verification is permanent even if your VRC+ subscription ends."
* They've received many complaints on this, and they are looking into a cheaper one time price, I suspect if they succeed it'll be X price, but if they fail, I hope they'll offer a $10 USD Age Verification that just "happens" to include a non-renewing 1 month of VRC+
If you can think of places where they can improve the messaging, do speak up.
Part of the reason they can't just offer it for free is that I recall seeing a comment on the forum where someone was speculating about paying people in eastern european countries to create vrchat accounts and go through the age verification process.
PowerNæp
I've seen this posted plenty times, and i still can't wrap my head around the justification of expecting free service.
So, i totally get where you're coming from - the framing does feel off at first glance. You clearly care about VRChat since you paid to support it, and that's awesome.
But, age verification isn't actually free for the service provider either (VRChat in this instance).
They use Persona for identity verification, which charges them per verification. (presumed) So when you paid the $10 for VRC+, part of what you're covering is that actual cost.
Other platforms may offer it for free, like Roblox, but it's covered elsewhere like advertisements, micro transactions, etc. Think also about the amount of active users on those platforms compared to this one and how their marketplace is heavily integrated, giving them a cut for all transactions. VRChat does none of this except for the recent Avatar marketplace and the credits which is still very small scale compared to Booth, Jinxxy, Payhip, Gumroad, etc.
Think of it this way; you mentioned the distinction between supporting the game and proving you're an adult. But in this case, they're kind of the same thing. The verification service costs money to run, and someone has to pay for it. VRChat bundled it with Plus rather than charging separately, which honestly seems like a cleaner approach than having yet another fee.
You say:
> the notion that anyone MUST pay to prove they're an adult is terrible
But what's the alternative? Should they:
- Raise Plus prices for everyone to cover free verifications?
- Add more aggressive monetization elsewhere?
- Just eat the cost and risk platform sustainability?
I'm genuinely curious what solution you'd propose, because every option has tradeoffs.
As for the implication that
unverified = minor
, I don't think that's what VRChat is saying. Plenty of adults play unverified just fine. Verification is specifically for people who want access to age-gated instances, which makes sense from a legal and safety perspective.You clearly want VRChat to succeed (you paid to support it!), so I'm sure you understand they need sustainable funding. $10 one-time to access age gated content while supporting the platform seems pretty reasonable in that context, no?
What would your ideal solution look like?
Verebat
PowerNæp
Actually, yes, they should eat the cost or raise the price of VRC+ for everyone else if it's that burdensome. If they knew that age verification for all players would be too expensive under their current financial model, then they should have come up with more aggressive monetization elsewhere or just not rolled it out at all.
Also, it is not clearly communicated that you can cancel your VRC+ subscription and retain your age verification after even just one month. I'd argue intentionally, too, because dark patterns are more profitable. (These are the same people who waffled about adding a clock to the menu years ago, because it would be worse for retention).
I bought VRC+ because I think it’s reasonable to support VRchat, considering I’ve played it off and on since 2019. I did not purchase it because I am fine with the way they are handling age verification for its users.
PowerNæp
Verebat A dark pattern would be requiring continued subscription to keep your verification, which is exactly what VRChat doesn't do.
They let you keep it forever after one month. That's the opposite of predatory.
Not advertising "hey, here's how to give us less money!" isn't deception, it's just... how marketing works. Companies don't put "CANCEL ANYTIME AND KEEP THE BENEFITS" in the headline.
If that's your threshold for malice, I'd recommend never reading a terms of service again.
Also worth noting:
VRC+ has stayed at $9.99/month since launch despite years of inflation, while other subscription based services have hiked prices repeatedly.
If they were the greedy bad actors you're implying, they've done an impressively bad job of it.
You paid the price of a Subway footlong once and kept the feature permanently. The math isn't mathing on this being an injustice.
Zer0Studioz
PowerNæp "We won't trust that your government issued ID is real unless you pay us a monthly fee" is literally the argument you're trying to defend here
PowerNæp
Zer0Studioz
That's an impressive level of selective reading. Genuinely, you had to dodge every fact in the thread to land on whatever take that is :/
Nobody, literally no one, is questioning if your government ID is "real." VRChat employees aren't huddled in a dark room squinting at your driver's license like "hmm, I dunno man, that eyebrow looks sus."
I'll spell it out one more time: Persona charges VRChat actual money per verification (liveness checks, fraud detection, global coverage. It's not free magic). You're covering that operational cost, not buying anyone's "trust."
It's a one-time $10. Bundle it with a month of VRC+, verify, cancel immediately, keep the badge permanently. Straight from the FAQ: "Age Verification is permanent even if your VRC+ subscription ends." That's been hammered home multiple times right here, but I guess you skimmed past it en route to your bumper-sticker slogan.
Calling it "monthly" is either peak dishonesty or proof you didn't read before jumping in. And honestly, either way, it's embarrassing.
If you're gonna boil a nuanced chat on platform economics and sustainability down to a lazy gotcha, at least make it accurate. You're 0 for 1 right now.
Zer0Studioz
PowerNæp Alright, sure, I'll concede I was exaggerating and ignoring the facts. I'll own up to that. But there's a few other things that should probably be pointed out
First, let's assume someone pays the $10 for one month, just to do verification, then cancels. Fine. Question. Why is that in VRC+ specifically? Why not make it an in-game purchase, like cosmetics, just as an example. It would still work. Same price, without the hassle of needing to remember to cancel. Not everyone feels the need for VRC+, so it works
Another point to mention, and you probably already considered it, but I'm gonna mention it, anyway. Regardless of the payment model, how much of your payment, and your payment specifically, is going to the age verification service, and not to VRChat? Let's make things simple and assume it's an even 50/50. So that means $5, half of the price you pay, goes to verification, and VRChat has to eat the cost of the other half. It's common practice for splits. One example, Steam takes 30% cut on game sales, so if a game cost $10, the devs make $7. Giving verification an exact 50/50 is generous, albeit unrealistic economically
Going back to the argument of VRChat simply eating the costs, how much do they make annually? I tried looking that up, and from what I got, they don't publicly provide those numbers. But with how big VRChat is, I'll estimate it's several hundred thousand to maybe a couple million. That's quite a lot of money to assume they can't just eat the costs. Yes, it will add up quickly, there's no denying that. But it's also a one time purchase, and even if you factor in a 1 month subscription just for that and cancel, they're going to make it back regardless
Sure, the free user base is higher than those who pay the monthly fee, so while they'll make much less if they just offer it for free, it's not going to bankrupt them, either. Not even close. Making age verification free, hell, even just a simple one-time purchase at a discount, isn't going to hurt them as much you you say it is. No matter which way you slice it, from a monetary standpoint, you have no argument here
PowerNæp
Zer0Studioz
Credit where it's due for owning the exaggeration.. But let me walk you through the rest.
The "why not a standalone purchase" point? That's fair, and I see the point. A one-time verification fee outside of VRC+ would probably be cleaner for someone not interested in VRC+. But then again, how many wouldn't complain it's not bundled lmao.
Now, the economics.
You "assumed" a 50/50 split, called it generous, then built your entire argument on top of it. That's not how analysis works. You made up a number and then drew conclusions from it. Persona's pricing is per-verification with tiered rates based on volume, not a revenue split. (My company is using Persona, while the exact amount is per contract basis, it's not 50/50 or even close), It's a completely different structure than Steam's cut on game sales. Those two things aren't even in the same category.
And then: "How much do they make annually? I tried looking that up and couldn't find it. But I'll estimate several hundred thousand to maybe a couple million."
You're estimating the revenue of a VC-backed company that raised $80M in Series D alone, running global multiplayer infrastructure with 150K+ peak concurrent users, real-time voice and avatar streaming, a full dev team, and third-party service contracts, at "maybe a couple million." I'd encourage you to revisit that number before building an argument on top of it.
So when you wrap it up with "from a monetary standpoint, you have no argument here," just keep in mind that confidence built on numbers you invented, a cost structure you guessed at, and a revenue estimate that's off by a wide margin isn't the slam dunk you think it is.
Bold of you to close with "you have no argument here" when your strongest data point was "I'll estimate.
Not to mention that this isn't a non-profit company. Of course they want to make money. And with the thousands of hours I have in return, I'll gladly cough up a cup of Starbucks each month to pay for it.