Marketing Games for a 'Mature' Audience

by TMB333 - 8/5/05 1:20 PM

I was recently taken aback by a major game developer's website which requested my credit card information just to find out more information about one of THEIR games.

As I was interested in purchasing DOOM 3, I figured the best way to get the inside hype on the game was to browse Activision's website. As soon as I clicked on the DOOM 3 link, a popup window requests that I put in my age AND a major credit card number for them to authenticate my 'maturity'.

As it turns out, ALL of their Mature Rated games require this authentication.

I'm of two minds on this one. First I applaud their efforts at trying to limit exposure of their Mature games to underage web surfers, however, surely there must be a better way to authenticate my age without me submitting my credit card information just so they can convince me that their game is worth buying.

Needless to say I didn't enter my credit info and easily browsed to one of the other MILLIONS of websites that have the information I was looking for.

Does anyone else think that this is strange or am I just too paranoid?