According to information shared by users online, major internet service providers in Vietnam are now blocking Steam in what appears to be an effort to better support the local games market and control which games are released in the country.
Users in Vietnam across social media platforms and forums are reporting that their access to Steam has been blocked. One thread on Steam’s forums, in particular, shows a user who has also lost access to Xbox Game Pass.
Users are reportedly losing access to Steam and other marketplaces in Vietnam
A report on the situation was initially published on a Vietnamese website, but Game Developer was quick to confirm the news using a translated version of the article. GamesIndustry.biz was told by a spokesperson for a local Vietnamese publisher that Steam sidesteps Vietnamese compliance by launching games without local approval.
The comments on compliance are likely in regard to a September 2023 piece of legislation that tightened censorship rules in Vietnam. Steam has its own guidelines for what can and can’t be included in games, but it distributes those games worldwide. This means Vietnamese games have to adhere to the Vietnamese guidelines, but games released on Steam don’t.
Vietnamese Helldivers 2 players are also reporting they lost access to Steam on the Helldivers 2 subreddit. A fun but fairly poignant post highlighted the efforts players had made when a PSN account requirement was about to lock many players out of the game. The sad reality is that after all that, the player’s government had blocked Steam and made it impossible for them to play anyway.
Reddit user thesilentwizard explained, “Starting yesterday, the Vietnamese Government has decided to ban access to Steam on all ISPs. The main store page has been blocked. This move is a part of their 200IQ strategy to ‘support the local gaming market’ by forcing us to play shitty pay to win mobile games.”
Other users in comments on Reddit are mentioning how Vietnamese publishers want more players for their free-to-play mobile games. Blocking one of the world’s largest game marketplaces would certainly force users to turn to whatever games are available.
Based on the information from GamesIndustry.biz’s source, this may be more of an effort to protect the local game publishers that rely on the Vietnamese market instead of forcing people to play a specific set of mobile games.
Valve has yet to comment on the matter as of this writing.
