The Scallop
Splatoon 3 to Require Age Verification
The unexpected move aims to get ahead of the UK government's upcoming policies.
The policies in question will regulate online videogames in which users are able to communicate using any emote, voice line, or action that will reflect in the other user’s game. “Being able to send more than one signal to another person inevitably means that it is possible to build more elaborate means of communication, such as Morse code or binary,” explained member of Parliament J. Johnson. Amongst other games, this definition applies to Splatoon 3 due to the presence of the “This Way!” and “Booyah!” signals, which Mr. Johnson argues implies the mathematical possibility of allowing harassment over the internet.
Nintendo posted the announcement on their official blog earlier today, detailing how they intend to start implementing changes now. "We don't want to get into trouble with the UK government. As a company we are quite adverse to litigation," a spokesperson for Nintendo said. "We just need to verify that you have an age, any age."
It is rumored that Nintendo is going to require users to purchase an optional limited edition amiibo™ for this mandatory verification process, although it is unclear how that would work. "We considered using a third-party service to handle the verification, but you all know how we feel about third-party stuff," the Japanese company's representative joked.
At the end of the interview, we were assured that the massive multinational corporation will not store any age information after it is verified, and will instead continue their focus on hoarding play statistics and credit card numbers.
"As many as we can," said the spokesperson.