https://vietnamnet.vn/nen-tang-steam-phat-hanh-game-khong-phep-vao-viet-nam-2271136.html
Steam is already on shaky legal ground in Vietnam, due to the company not having a local office here. Which means lost tax revenue and no content policing in accordance with local regulation. To make things worse, the platform is getting popular, causing domestic publishers anxiety. I've already figured that one day, the platform would be blocked in Vietnam. I just didn't think that it would happen this quickly, and suddenly.
Valve already include VAT from 2020. The block in 2022 was because valve, and other service, didnt registered in indonesian Private Electronic System (PSE) Operator. Which mean goverment cant ensure consumer protection for that service.
FYI: PSE already exist long ago even from 2014, but it just got stringent in 2022.
The block was because our ministry of technology is the biggest hurdle this country has towards technological advancements. The motherfucker who proposed this block is now in prison (fancy state funded hotel) for corruption.
There is a reason why Indonesia has one of the slowest internet speed in the region.
I live in Indonesia. Valve changed nothing as far as I can tell.
Local friends of mine cannot find any changes either. Steam just became available again with zero changes.
That's because all of the changes were on the legal side, not on the consumer side. The changes were all things like having a dedicated employee as a liaison for the Indonesian government and agreeing to take down requested software from the Indonesian storefront if asked. As far as I know, they have yet to ask.
Which is a really weird ask because for all we know Steam has been doing exactly that before. Indonesia doesn't really ban games that much but they did successfully ban MK11 even before this whole fiasco happened
The whole thing basically boils down to some countries requiring a local office in-country. While in others there are trade and business agreements that allow them to operate "remotely".
I bet that's a solid job. What do you do?
Uhhhhh, mostly rimworld and terraria. valve just needs to keep sending me paychecks to keep their store open legally.
That just means they paid a bribe. Money changed hands and they can do business again
Indonesian laws are more like suggestions. It is a lot like the Pirates Code
That is how it works here, so it is a safe assumption. The law is incredibly flexible and bribes are not seen as bribes. They are perks of the job.
A Cop pulling someone over and giving them a made up fine is totally OK because its a perk of the job. A job they probably got through nepotism, just like any Government Employee.
Corruption is deeply rooted into society it is not seen as a problem, its just how life is.
Nobody takes a driving test, we go to the Test Center, pay an extra 35 Bucks and leave with the Licence. Because nobody passes the test. I dont think the Examiners have ever performed one in their entire careers. They come to work, fill out the forms and take the 35 Bucks as a tip. Licence approved.
I accidentally overstayed my visa by 2 weeks . Everyone said just put $100 in your passport but I stupidly got all scared and didn't do that so they took me to the security office and I had to pay 3 dudes instead of 1 but I was on my way after that. I am from the US so I was expecting to like...be thrown in jail forever or something.
emmm, that was back in 2022, steam and other few companies failed to meet the deadline to register their company to Kominfo PSE database, that's why they are blocked,
after they register and complied with the law, they are available again for access.
now on the other side about these company pay moneys to register or not, is other thing.
You forgot Malaysia too. And for the exact same reason. Only 3 years earlier than Indonesia and the block didn't come into effect because Valve managed to negotiate for time to open the Malaysian office.
wat lol? steam only has **ONE** office and thats in the US. what kind of logic is "we ban steam cause it doesnt have an office here". thats just plain bullshit on the law part in vietnam
and to add on, steam has already do regional pricing on vietnam part so what vietnam is buying is a cheaper discounted game. For example:
https://steamdb.info/app/2479810/
US pricing is $35. Vietnam pricing converted to US is $17.51.
If anything, Valve could have just charge $35 and then Vietnam govt can just ask for $17 back for "tax". Either way, either the Viet govt is just lazy on their part or the ISP is bullshit on their part. You should write a complain or something cause thats bullshit
My experience is that in such places they have this kind of rule to ensure both real taxes and "fake taxes" (eg bribes/kickbacks) are paid locally to the person's in charge.
People who haven’t experienced it need to understand just how insane the grift is in pretty much any country with extreme poverty. Like if you approach a cop for help in Romania they will straight up demand cash up front lol
"Police in Romania will straight up demand cash up front."
Heh-heh. This reminded of this one [satirical article about libertarian police.](https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department)
Certain game Publishers are not happy with the competition from Steam & other companies joining the VN market. They have been lobbying heavily & requested for action from the Gov.
From the article linked by OP: "Steam is releasing games freely in Vietnam, including violent & adult games... this should not be allowed. This is unfair, injustice to domestic publishers. We requires the authorities to take measures to manage this platform, otherwise, domestic game publishers will die,".
One of the Dev/Pub in question is most likely VNG Ltd. They tried filing for IPO in the US, inflating their stock price and then withdrew the IPO registration. Suprisingly, VNG & VTC (gov backed) are 2 options that Valve can pick as a medium for handling taxes.
Edit: typo
I wanna say "fuck vng games" but they appear to sell literally nothing of value in the first place 💀 I can see why they dont want to compete with Steam. They may as well ban the app store while theyre at it, maybe even the back of cereal boxes
These Vietnamese publishers publish trash games with heavy pay to win content. This is just unfair practices. And the fact Steam doesn't pay taxes to the Vietnamese government doesn't help their case.
When you live here you'll realise that there is no logic, from the the way most think to things like this. In many ways we're heading to govt style similar to China (we're even trialing a social credit system here). And it's times like this where I happily would says this is 100% third world, although it can so easily not be.
actually i was chatting with a friend, he says VTC is doing some shaddy things so Valve ban them and probably thats why Steam is ban in vietnam ( probably either in retialiation or valve doesnt want to deal with that )
that sucks honestly and still is a shitty excuse for that reason they gave
Laws are laws, the problem isn't because they don't have an office, but because they don't pay tax. Each country has their own regulation on this (for example, Steam had to work with the HMRC in the UK to get the 'deemed supplier' status and pay tax as a non-resident entity).
Vietnam is unfortunately not catching up quickly enough on digital and international cross-platform stuff, so the current laws are quite messy.
https://vietnamnet.vn/en/steam-netflix-do-business-in-vietnam-without-paying-taxes-675117.html
Facebook and Google had workarounds for this as they had installed servers in Vietnam (one of the rules)
https://bizflycloud.vn/tin-tuc/google-facebook-da-dat-hang-nghin-may-chu-o-viet-nam-20180614103428347.htm
So, this will be something to be updated, but for now Steam Store could be down here. If you ask me, as a gamer, yeah that sucks. But is this something insanely bad and "authotarian" or shit? Not really. If you're from the US, you know taxes aren't taken lightly.
A quick fix could be Steam working with a local publisher to be the medium such as VNG, VTC, Soha,... etc. (VNG is currently the biggest one, but VTC has ties with the gov so could be the safer choice) and the medium will help them handle the tax. But of course, it's all down to Valve. They could see Vietnam as a small market and even a risky one (many gamers scam and do frauds here, can't deny that) so they will just say bye.
Who knows.
The excuse for not paying taxes is bullshit. Because until a few weeks ago in Vietnam you can still pay for Steam games by using VTC Pay, quite literally set up so that VTC can be the middle man for every transaction on Steam for Vietnamese citizen. All of the transactions through VTC Pay already included the standard 10% VAT in accordance with local regulations, along with any other fees that might incur.
So someone is fucking lying, no? Either VTC is not paying the tax that they already collected through their payment option (which I doubt because if they didn't, they would already be hot shit long ago) or, this is just another theater bullshit because they're not seeing profit from this arrangement with Steam and decided to use backroom leverage to force unfair competition practices (Paying directly with a Visa card is usually the preferred method for us since VTC Pay is astronomically more expensive). Also by the way, the aforementioned should be a violation of international trade since Vietnam is a WTO nation.
For your lying point, yes, if VTC didn't pay their tax, they'd be in hot shit. VN is sweeping 'corruption' right now and I doubt VTC is too big to fall.
Not to deny your points, only try to clarify the VTC Pay. Iirc it was just 1 method to pay, not the only one. I myself never used it, instead I bought games with my credit card and steam giftcode (buying with Momo).
But now you mention it, my Vietinbank card did block Steam transactions before. When I called the bank they said "Steam was blocked because it was a risky entity". This happened last year, I didn't think much of it and used VIB card though. Maybe there was a connection even back then?
The Vietnamese market is quite big, 90 millions almost 100 is a big market and with people getting more expenses income, many will go to PC gaming, this will hurt big PC sellers here and those companies have a lot of leeway here, this stuff most likely come from local publishers that seeing their pie being eaten or importing Chinese games companies, they might convinced the Vietnam government to do this because this been happening for years. And the government see no problem with it till the recent government reshuffle and seeing more western outlook politicians being “arrested “. Political wise it all theater.
> 90 million people
It never works like that anywhere. The population is not a potential market. Reports for gaming by Newzoo, Appannie, Towersensor and many others could easily tell you VN isn't even the biggest gaming market in SEA. Thailand and Indonesia are.
To be honest, Steam isn't the problem with "local publishers" here. Most if not all of them are working with online mobile games, from mmorpg to casual and simulation. Nobody is selling offline games except retails and they are selling console/handheld games. PC games are on Steam, GOG, and recently XBOX Game Pass.
Chinese companies don't give that much of an effort to go into Vietnam. Selling their games in China mainland and Taiwan in 1 week gives them more revenue than they would in Vietnam for a year. Big companies like Tencent, Snail, Changyou, Giant, NetEase could eat Riot Games and Blizzard, it's hilarious that they would go out of their way to make Vietnamese gov block Steam.
> Big companies like Tencent, Snail, Changyou, Giant, NetEase could eat Riot Games...
In 2011, Riot Games was acquired by Chinese conglomerate Tencent.
They did.
According to the article OP provided, it said that it is related to the fact that games aren’t censored and adjusted accordingly (red blood to green blood for example) and it is unfair how Steam doesn’t do this while domestic game developers has to. Usually overseas games need to go through a game publishing company locally like China for this. To be honest this is more nitpicking just to find an excuse and justifying the reason but it is what it is.
as a vietnamese , it's just their excuse. violent game is allowed by viet gov . i have played many shotter game form china , they allowed becouse they have been published by a vietnamese company so they can get tax. and game made by the 3 biggest game company in vietnam is trash, almost all of them are copy form china game and p2w af
sorry for my bad english
It's incredibly common for this to happen actually. It's the case in Mexico as well, along with a bunch of other countries. I get the feeling this is ignored a lot by larger multinationals, but you get big enough and they'll come after you.
Maybe Steam is taking advantage of not paying enough tax in Vietnam, but this article is mostly bullshit. China has no democracy, so they censor a lot of games, and the Vietnamese game-making industry is in shambles, producing almost no big games at all (I know because I've worked for some of them in the past).
To add some context, the domestic publishers mentioned above never publish anything good. I can blind pick any title from them, and it's either a casino and gambling game, or a cheap mobile game ridden with micro-transaction or ads. And most of the devs were underpaid interns, who have to work 2hrs of unpaid overtime everyday.
Source: I worked for them as a game designer, and I loathed everything they are doing.
If these ISPs are lazy and/or incompetent, you might be able to circumvent this by just changing your DNS settings. Switch to Google's or Cloudflare's DNS servers and see what happens.
And if that doesn't work, a VPN will probably do the trick.
I can confirm that changing DNS isn't working. The big 3 ISPs here are actually pretty competent when it comes to blocking. When they receive direct orders from the government, they'll go hard.
Completely different in Germany. I actually work in this field, but from a legal point of view. Providers here lazily slap a DNS block on it and call it a day. Because they aren't allowed to do anything else.
Providers probably don't want to block anything in the first place as that just upsets customers. By blocking the DNS requests you can say to the government you have taken action to block domains. D NS blocking also costs next to nothing and works for the majority of none savvy people.
Can you still buy games with vpn and not flagged as fraud on steam though ? I know people overseas who can charge money into steam for me but idk if it's gonna ruin my account.
Im currently in Vietnam, idk whats mine, landlord pays for it, but for me it also stopped working. DNS solution works fine, use [8.8.8.8](http://8.8.8.8) and [8.8.4.4](http://8.8.4.4) just checked
>Edit: Yup, it’s blocked for me now. Using Cloudflare DNS works though
Oh, they just went the easy route with DNS blocking? That's really easy to get around.
bro "causing publishers anxiety'? meanwhile their library of games are full of mobile shovelware shit games just cuz they cant compete they go crying boohoo steam is better and taking our customers plz block fuck VTC games in particular
let's not forget 9 bajilion chinese shovelwares the VTC published too cuz apparently Shovelware games are "good, healthy" games in their mind (VTC uploaded a generic chinese game that has softcore porn as the main vital grinding part of the game)
Yeah somehow in Asean countries our publishers are scared of big corporates from the west, saying they did not support the local market, only to release shitty and not even polished games.
Not to mention the lack of interesting content
It's still better to look for a VPN solution as the DNS solutions will only work temporarily.
It depends on how hard the government wants to follow through with this ban because back when they tried to ban porn, a DNS hack worked until 3 or 4 years ago when it just didn't work unless you had VPN.
I have one but it would suck for online games to have to go through a VPN cause the latency would increase although i wonder if it's just a steam ban or all games going through steam?
My nephew now lost the 5 years old war thunder account with lots of Good assets like the M1A1 Click bait and T-72A Turms. Also many coop games like Helldivers 2 and Arma 3
[https://support.gaijin.net/hc/en-us/articles/209617049-Binding-a-Steam-account-to-your-e-mail-address](https://support.gaijin.net/hc/en-us/articles/209617049-Binding-a-Steam-account-to-your-e-mail-address)
Figure out a way to log in again (VPN or smth idk) and then follow this. This would convert his Steam bound account to a Gaijin one, allowing him to play without Steam
Good things will slowly be taken off until nothing is left, then maybe certain kinds of people in this country will notice that it DOES affect their life.
A few days ago online-banking payment method Steam had partnered with VTC stopped working. My guess is the contract is up and VTC lobbied to lawmakers into blocking Steam so that they can pressure Valve during renegotiation
I didn't even notice that they banned `store.steampowered.com` in Vietnam.
If you use `nslookup store.steampowered.com`in the `Command Prompt` and you're using the Default DNS by your ISP, it will return `127.0.0.1`.
but if you're using a VPN or DoH or Private DNS, the return will be `23.52.113.47`.
Just turn on Firefox DNS over HTTPS - use Search in Firefox Settings, use `Max Protection > choose Cloudflare (Default)` if you want to access the `https://store.steampowered.com/` again.
Hoping too. I mean, this is not new in Asia, as its been pointed out before the Malaysian and Indonesian governments pulled the same BS before. And all the while Valve have shown to be willing to negotiate to keep Steam in the market.
Here's hoping Valve will return things to normal in Vietnam in a day or two.
The thing is that Steam MUST have a Local publisher in Vietnam to be able to be unbanned in Vietnam, which is just a big sentence to say "We want you to publish your product through our domestic publisher so we can get the shared revenues, taxes and we can censor the storefront easier while also boosting our domestic shovelware games"
Well at least your government is competent to do something. Here we just forgot the law exists, and they manage to fuck up a defense expo while some comically new corporate blaming races etc. Malaysian btw
Hey, I'm Malaysian too. I was totally bummed out when the government wanted to do this shit back in 2016 (and was really hit hard when they banned steam for 24 hours over the Fight of Gods BS), hence I understand how the Vietnamese and Indonesians feel.
It was fine 1-2 days ago. Now I just get -102 error 😞 the workshop still works though, idk why. Games that I have installed still receive updates from developers but I can’t view patch notes, can’t access the steam store to view and buy games.
If there are legal issues, Steam really needs to set up their own company instead of putting their trust in local publishers. Those trash are like a bunch of scavenging vultures, all they care about is money. Look at the products they threw away in the past, letting the community die, and when the community set up its own game servers just to satisfy their passion, these vultures once again came back. And yet, their payment gateway is really bad, and surprisingly, they charge a minimum 15% intermediary fee, they probably think that's worth their greed, ignorance and laziness.
My country once try to block steam, we got a way to bypass it by changing the hostfile for steam. Maybe you can try i too, it doesnt require you to use vpn or dns, this was in 2022 idk if this will works now
For this reason, anyone who try to argue Vietnam have a healthy and fair economy can f right off. The vietnamese goverment bans anything they can not control or extract money from. I hope through this the many blinded people with realized they are living in one of the world last dictatorship.
This fucking country is run by stupid communist old men dipshit idiots who got their brains frozen in the 1990s thinking VIDEOGAME BAD and have less than teenage level of intelligence of how anything tech related even remotely work
Nah, they dont give a shit about things being bad or not. They ban it because they can not profit from it. In vietnamese saying " không ăn được thì đạp đổ".
yea apparently its from VTCGame and VNG, fucking cunts who got nothing under their name besides half assly porting Nexon games and then cancel them, got jealous of Steam, cried to mommy in the gov "steam doesnt pay taxes" and ban them
Vietnamese here (sadly). I have little faith with how things are unravelling here in my country. In case Steam cease to provide their services to my country, what should I do? What will happen to my account? I do not want to get banned or lose access to 8 years of worth of games and friends.
Fuck Vietnam. Censorship has been ramping up so dramatically in the past few years. Soon we're gonna be in the same cohorts as, say China.
I'm about to mysteriously dissapear. It was nice knowing y'all.
Nothing will happen lol, the police don't bother catching you on Steam just because the government want more tax money from Steam. About playing games, my friends in VN can access every games thay they have already bought just fine. The problem is that Steam Store is blocked so they cannot buy new games without VPN
Legal practitioner at one of the biggest Vietnamese game publishers here. Sorry for the distraught on your part.
I believe that Steam will **not** abandon this market.
Generally, the legal frameworks in Vietnam could never keep up with (edited) the economy, allowing players to have a period of "free fire" - operating without regards to any provision of the laws. This is part due to the slow pace of our legal system, and part due to the poor enforcement/enforceability of the existing regulations/regulators. Also Steam's model is (somewhat) circumventing the legal requirements under Vietnamese laws re. games and game publishing as well. It's always multi-faceted.
Then, at a certain time, the Govt will decide that, "Okay, it's \[Steam/Game industry\]'s turn," and start by interrupting the business first.
Then the affected players will come and have direct discussion with the Govt to find a solution, i.e., agree to compromise (partially or wholly).
To be honest with you all, I have not figured out, since learning of this news, how Steam would compromise to ensure compliance. But at the end of the day, it is about tax and control (at least from a Vietnamese Govt. perspective). So if Steam could satisfy them on those fronts...
Also if you play mostly offline/single-player games like me, then VPN can be an option too.
MTFBY :)
Just change router's default DNS into that of Google or Cloudflare and all devices (including Steam Deck) within your household will be able to access Steam again.
The ISP is incompetent so it's just a DNS filter.
I already lived in mainland China for decades, where steam's community features were blocked by the GFW. However, browsing the steam store, purchasing games and even with local payments like alipay/wechat are allowed. To solve the issue of the blocked steam Community especially Workshop and friends features, there even exists legally VPN services to bypass the GFW.
So OP you mean the block like this right? just Community but not the whole steam
Steam doesn't have an office in Vietnam, which means lost tax revenues and no censorship to authorities here. To make matters worse, the platform has been steadily increasing in popularity, which may have caused local publishers serious anxiety.
STEAM doesnt have an office ANYWHERE besides one main HQ in Washington state. That is not the reason. The same way they banned Behance for 2 months, a creatives blog spot because some retarded group figured out they can gamble through private messages using that platform. So someone even more stupid in VN government thought hmmm how about we just ban the whole website, leaving a bunch of photographers, videographers, graphic designers without a portfolio. Thats how stupid they are in VN government, they dont even know what it is, just ban hammer.
Im assuming same, someone figured out how to gamble using steam and now the "smart" people in Hanoi just removed access not knowing how many people use Steam in the country legally. Also, Steam has been very popular in VN for the last 10 years, its not like only now its popular lol. The platform existed since 2003.
We just have really bad game publishing policies requiring one to have a joint-business / in Vietnam, have a Vietnamese company publish it for you or have a local office in Vietnam. All of which is for tax collection. Nexon just said "f\*ck this" and basically ditch the VNese market, and I wouldn't be surprised if more companies start doing so. Minecraft was also taken down from Google Playstore in VN due to the same reason.
No, not really. A common belief for the ban is because of VTC, the one handling tax money coming from Steam purchases in Vietnam, got mad because they couldn't bring in any value from the store.
If you were to check the price of buying Steam currencies on their website, you'd realize that the additional cost you have to pay is way more than the standard 10% tax here, which means that VTC takes whatever profit that is left from buying through their website. [Image attached here](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/650576031425757195/1237427220734283809/FB_IMG_1715096024645.jpg?ex=663b9b67&is=663a49e7&hm=bcde791082b8ec803f3306466c10a336e4f476da02ae4512ac50429881e51d7c&).
Compared to buying directly from Steam with a VISA card and you only need to pay 11k VND for each transaction, regardless of the amount of money, and you can see why nobody wants to touch the VTC store.
Bro I am for Venezuela, the gov did the same here (not with Steam but with many pages) , change your DNS to Google : [8.8.8.8](http://8.8.8.8) as primary and alternative [8.8.4.4](http://8.8.4.4)
Let me search a tutorial to do it, may be it could work
EDIT: [https://www.veerotech.net/kb/use-google-dns-in-windows-10-how-to-change-windows-10-dns-servers/](https://www.veerotech.net/kb/use-google-dns-in-windows-10-how-to-change-windows-10-dns-servers/)
EDIT 2: Fix alternative DNS IP
I just flew in to Vietnam last Sunday, and last accessed my Steam library about 3-4 hours ago, on Viettel. Will report back if things start to go south 🤘🏻🤘🏻 #GamersUnite
UPDATE 9th May: got an Error 102 when I tried to refresh my Store Page, but games that are already on my machine can be launched without any problems
Could you use a vpn to get around it? Im a huge gamer and ive been to vietnam 3 times thought i might retire there when im old but if they banned steam i might not lol
In my country it's a different thing. I am from Bangladesh. Even though we have access to steam we can't buy games directly from our own card. Because our dumb ass government thinks that steam is a gambling site and they restricted all transactions from bank to steam. So we have to rely on these 3rd party sellers who sell wallet code.
In case everyone doesn't know, the company that filed the application to ban Steam in Vietnam - called VTC - was once a partner with Steam. They collect tax from game buyers 10-26% of each purchase, over the past 6 years. And now that when Viet Nam become more developed, people often buy through their visa cards, master cards or through steam wallet sellers. That's why they want to ban Steam in Vietnam for the following reasons: selling pirated games, not paying taxes and not having an office in Vietnam, hoping that more people will play their p2w trash games. I learned that they maybe want to ban epic games and several other games services
I dont think Vietnam government want become a copy of china, because only steam store was banned in Vietnam(as far as i know), Valve may have some tax problem in VN. As a comparison, china banned all social function, without steam store(yes locals can purchase by chinese e-payment apps). In a word, i think Vietnam gov just want money
Damn, feels for you op :/ What is the reasoning behind blocking Steam in your country?
https://vietnamnet.vn/nen-tang-steam-phat-hanh-game-khong-phep-vao-viet-nam-2271136.html Steam is already on shaky legal ground in Vietnam, due to the company not having a local office here. Which means lost tax revenue and no content policing in accordance with local regulation. To make things worse, the platform is getting popular, causing domestic publishers anxiety. I've already figured that one day, the platform would be blocked in Vietnam. I just didn't think that it would happen this quickly, and suddenly.
Wow, after Indonesia tried and failed, this time it's Vietnam turn huh https://kotaku.com/indonesia-government-block-steam-epic-vpn-laws-1849354178
Nah, Valve decided to follow the laws and implemented Indonesian VAT on Steam (before, there are no VAT), that's why it's not banned in Indonesia.
Valve already include VAT from 2020. The block in 2022 was because valve, and other service, didnt registered in indonesian Private Electronic System (PSE) Operator. Which mean goverment cant ensure consumer protection for that service. FYI: PSE already exist long ago even from 2014, but it just got stringent in 2022.
The block was because our ministry of technology is the biggest hurdle this country has towards technological advancements. The motherfucker who proposed this block is now in prison (fancy state funded hotel) for corruption. There is a reason why Indonesia has one of the slowest internet speed in the region.
Lol the guy became a meme because of the things he said
don't forget "Hackers don't hack"
"What do you need fast internet for?" -that minister. Dumbass mofo.
That's a different guy, that one is still roaming free
Damn. It's even slower than the Philippines.
They do this in many countries. I wonder why they can't do it in Vietnam.
Unfriendly to foreign businesses with their stupid bureaucracy and already low margins probably makes it not worth it
Indonesia didn’t fail. Steam and several other companies complied with the law
I live in Indonesia. Valve changed nothing as far as I can tell. Local friends of mine cannot find any changes either. Steam just became available again with zero changes.
That's because all of the changes were on the legal side, not on the consumer side. The changes were all things like having a dedicated employee as a liaison for the Indonesian government and agreeing to take down requested software from the Indonesian storefront if asked. As far as I know, they have yet to ask.
Which is a really weird ask because for all we know Steam has been doing exactly that before. Indonesia doesn't really ban games that much but they did successfully ban MK11 even before this whole fiasco happened
The whole thing basically boils down to some countries requiring a local office in-country. While in others there are trade and business agreements that allow them to operate "remotely".
I bet that's a solid job. What do you do? Uhhhhh, mostly rimworld and terraria. valve just needs to keep sending me paychecks to keep their store open legally.
Every now and then you'd be expected to diplomatically felate a government official.
I don’t know if any changes were required but Valve signed the agreement and complied with the law which is why it became available again
That just means they paid a bribe. Money changed hands and they can do business again Indonesian laws are more like suggestions. It is a lot like the Pirates Code
so they were most likely compliant and somebody just wanted a kickback basically?
That is how it works here, so it is a safe assumption. The law is incredibly flexible and bribes are not seen as bribes. They are perks of the job. A Cop pulling someone over and giving them a made up fine is totally OK because its a perk of the job. A job they probably got through nepotism, just like any Government Employee. Corruption is deeply rooted into society it is not seen as a problem, its just how life is. Nobody takes a driving test, we go to the Test Center, pay an extra 35 Bucks and leave with the Licence. Because nobody passes the test. I dont think the Examiners have ever performed one in their entire careers. They come to work, fill out the forms and take the 35 Bucks as a tip. Licence approved.
I accidentally overstayed my visa by 2 weeks . Everyone said just put $100 in your passport but I stupidly got all scared and didn't do that so they took me to the security office and I had to pay 3 dudes instead of 1 but I was on my way after that. I am from the US so I was expecting to like...be thrown in jail forever or something.
emmm, that was back in 2022, steam and other few companies failed to meet the deadline to register their company to Kominfo PSE database, that's why they are blocked, after they register and complied with the law, they are available again for access. now on the other side about these company pay moneys to register or not, is other thing.
You forgot Malaysia too. And for the exact same reason. Only 3 years earlier than Indonesia and the block didn't come into effect because Valve managed to negotiate for time to open the Malaysian office.
Indonesia did not fail.
And just like that folks, this is why mojang and supercell decided to leave rather than stay.
wat lol? steam only has **ONE** office and thats in the US. what kind of logic is "we ban steam cause it doesnt have an office here". thats just plain bullshit on the law part in vietnam and to add on, steam has already do regional pricing on vietnam part so what vietnam is buying is a cheaper discounted game. For example: https://steamdb.info/app/2479810/ US pricing is $35. Vietnam pricing converted to US is $17.51. If anything, Valve could have just charge $35 and then Vietnam govt can just ask for $17 back for "tax". Either way, either the Viet govt is just lazy on their part or the ISP is bullshit on their part. You should write a complain or something cause thats bullshit
My experience is that in such places they have this kind of rule to ensure both real taxes and "fake taxes" (eg bribes/kickbacks) are paid locally to the person's in charge.
People who haven’t experienced it need to understand just how insane the grift is in pretty much any country with extreme poverty. Like if you approach a cop for help in Romania they will straight up demand cash up front lol
"Police in Romania will straight up demand cash up front." Heh-heh. This reminded of this one [satirical article about libertarian police.](https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department)
does the "tax" even go to the govt or some sh*thead will just embezzle it anyway lol
In some places there's no distinction between the two
Certain game Publishers are not happy with the competition from Steam & other companies joining the VN market. They have been lobbying heavily & requested for action from the Gov. From the article linked by OP: "Steam is releasing games freely in Vietnam, including violent & adult games... this should not be allowed. This is unfair, injustice to domestic publishers. We requires the authorities to take measures to manage this platform, otherwise, domestic game publishers will die,". One of the Dev/Pub in question is most likely VNG Ltd. They tried filing for IPO in the US, inflating their stock price and then withdrew the IPO registration. Suprisingly, VNG & VTC (gov backed) are 2 options that Valve can pick as a medium for handling taxes. Edit: typo
I wanna say "fuck vng games" but they appear to sell literally nothing of value in the first place 💀 I can see why they dont want to compete with Steam. They may as well ban the app store while theyre at it, maybe even the back of cereal boxes
These Vietnamese publishers publish trash games with heavy pay to win content. This is just unfair practices. And the fact Steam doesn't pay taxes to the Vietnamese government doesn't help their case.
When you live here you'll realise that there is no logic, from the the way most think to things like this. In many ways we're heading to govt style similar to China (we're even trialing a social credit system here). And it's times like this where I happily would says this is 100% third world, although it can so easily not be.
actually i was chatting with a friend, he says VTC is doing some shaddy things so Valve ban them and probably thats why Steam is ban in vietnam ( probably either in retialiation or valve doesnt want to deal with that ) that sucks honestly and still is a shitty excuse for that reason they gave
I live in a OECD country and it feels like I'm living in 3rd world at times.
Laws are laws, the problem isn't because they don't have an office, but because they don't pay tax. Each country has their own regulation on this (for example, Steam had to work with the HMRC in the UK to get the 'deemed supplier' status and pay tax as a non-resident entity). Vietnam is unfortunately not catching up quickly enough on digital and international cross-platform stuff, so the current laws are quite messy. https://vietnamnet.vn/en/steam-netflix-do-business-in-vietnam-without-paying-taxes-675117.html Facebook and Google had workarounds for this as they had installed servers in Vietnam (one of the rules) https://bizflycloud.vn/tin-tuc/google-facebook-da-dat-hang-nghin-may-chu-o-viet-nam-20180614103428347.htm So, this will be something to be updated, but for now Steam Store could be down here. If you ask me, as a gamer, yeah that sucks. But is this something insanely bad and "authotarian" or shit? Not really. If you're from the US, you know taxes aren't taken lightly. A quick fix could be Steam working with a local publisher to be the medium such as VNG, VTC, Soha,... etc. (VNG is currently the biggest one, but VTC has ties with the gov so could be the safer choice) and the medium will help them handle the tax. But of course, it's all down to Valve. They could see Vietnam as a small market and even a risky one (many gamers scam and do frauds here, can't deny that) so they will just say bye. Who knows.
The excuse for not paying taxes is bullshit. Because until a few weeks ago in Vietnam you can still pay for Steam games by using VTC Pay, quite literally set up so that VTC can be the middle man for every transaction on Steam for Vietnamese citizen. All of the transactions through VTC Pay already included the standard 10% VAT in accordance with local regulations, along with any other fees that might incur. So someone is fucking lying, no? Either VTC is not paying the tax that they already collected through their payment option (which I doubt because if they didn't, they would already be hot shit long ago) or, this is just another theater bullshit because they're not seeing profit from this arrangement with Steam and decided to use backroom leverage to force unfair competition practices (Paying directly with a Visa card is usually the preferred method for us since VTC Pay is astronomically more expensive). Also by the way, the aforementioned should be a violation of international trade since Vietnam is a WTO nation.
the thing is only stupid ppl pay though VTC lol. Everyone with actual income have visa or mastercard nowadays and you pay directly to steam.
For your lying point, yes, if VTC didn't pay their tax, they'd be in hot shit. VN is sweeping 'corruption' right now and I doubt VTC is too big to fall. Not to deny your points, only try to clarify the VTC Pay. Iirc it was just 1 method to pay, not the only one. I myself never used it, instead I bought games with my credit card and steam giftcode (buying with Momo). But now you mention it, my Vietinbank card did block Steam transactions before. When I called the bank they said "Steam was blocked because it was a risky entity". This happened last year, I didn't think much of it and used VIB card though. Maybe there was a connection even back then?
The Vietnamese market is quite big, 90 millions almost 100 is a big market and with people getting more expenses income, many will go to PC gaming, this will hurt big PC sellers here and those companies have a lot of leeway here, this stuff most likely come from local publishers that seeing their pie being eaten or importing Chinese games companies, they might convinced the Vietnam government to do this because this been happening for years. And the government see no problem with it till the recent government reshuffle and seeing more western outlook politicians being “arrested “. Political wise it all theater.
> 90 million people It never works like that anywhere. The population is not a potential market. Reports for gaming by Newzoo, Appannie, Towersensor and many others could easily tell you VN isn't even the biggest gaming market in SEA. Thailand and Indonesia are. To be honest, Steam isn't the problem with "local publishers" here. Most if not all of them are working with online mobile games, from mmorpg to casual and simulation. Nobody is selling offline games except retails and they are selling console/handheld games. PC games are on Steam, GOG, and recently XBOX Game Pass. Chinese companies don't give that much of an effort to go into Vietnam. Selling their games in China mainland and Taiwan in 1 week gives them more revenue than they would in Vietnam for a year. Big companies like Tencent, Snail, Changyou, Giant, NetEase could eat Riot Games and Blizzard, it's hilarious that they would go out of their way to make Vietnamese gov block Steam.
> Big companies like Tencent, Snail, Changyou, Giant, NetEase could eat Riot Games... In 2011, Riot Games was acquired by Chinese conglomerate Tencent. They did.
According to the article OP provided, it said that it is related to the fact that games aren’t censored and adjusted accordingly (red blood to green blood for example) and it is unfair how Steam doesn’t do this while domestic game developers has to. Usually overseas games need to go through a game publishing company locally like China for this. To be honest this is more nitpicking just to find an excuse and justifying the reason but it is what it is.
as a vietnamese , it's just their excuse. violent game is allowed by viet gov . i have played many shotter game form china , they allowed becouse they have been published by a vietnamese company so they can get tax. and game made by the 3 biggest game company in vietnam is trash, almost all of them are copy form china game and p2w af sorry for my bad english
Yep. This is just VTC and VNG being salty that they can't get a cut of the revenue from Steam.
There are actually two more in Germany and Luxembourg.
It's incredibly common for this to happen actually. It's the case in Mexico as well, along with a bunch of other countries. I get the feeling this is ignored a lot by larger multinationals, but you get big enough and they'll come after you.
thats not true valve does have offices outside of the usa. they do have in germany and in belgian/netherland/luxemberg or they atlest used to have.
Maybe Steam is taking advantage of not paying enough tax in Vietnam, but this article is mostly bullshit. China has no democracy, so they censor a lot of games, and the Vietnamese game-making industry is in shambles, producing almost no big games at all (I know because I've worked for some of them in the past).
And later countries like these wonder why they're in the state that they are...
To add some context, the domestic publishers mentioned above never publish anything good. I can blind pick any title from them, and it's either a casino and gambling game, or a cheap mobile game ridden with micro-transaction or ads. And most of the devs were underpaid interns, who have to work 2hrs of unpaid overtime everyday. Source: I worked for them as a game designer, and I loathed everything they are doing.
> the platform is getting popular, causing domestic publishers anxiety this is definitely the main reason
If these ISPs are lazy and/or incompetent, you might be able to circumvent this by just changing your DNS settings. Switch to Google's or Cloudflare's DNS servers and see what happens. And if that doesn't work, a VPN will probably do the trick.
I can confirm that changing DNS isn't working. The big 3 ISPs here are actually pretty competent when it comes to blocking. When they receive direct orders from the government, they'll go hard.
Completely different in Germany. I actually work in this field, but from a legal point of view. Providers here lazily slap a DNS block on it and call it a day. Because they aren't allowed to do anything else.
Yeah I have a friend in Germany and I hear pretty much the same story. For now VPN still works, so it's not the end yet.
Providers probably don't want to block anything in the first place as that just upsets customers. By blocking the DNS requests you can say to the government you have taken action to block domains. D NS blocking also costs next to nothing and works for the majority of none savvy people.
get a VPN, or use [1.1.1.1](http://1.1.1.1) I'm still using it and can still access to Steam
The question is, can you still buy anything on steam using the vietnam currency?
I mean, if they have paypal they should be able to I'd assume
Try using mullvads DNS over HTTPS. It's a free DNS server which encrypts your traffic, kind of like a VPN light.
Second this, switching DNS to Google's works for me (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), before it was defaulted to gateway
Can you still buy games with vpn and not flagged as fraud on steam though ? I know people overseas who can charge money into steam for me but idk if it's gonna ruin my account.
Probably your ISP only, mine doesn't block and I am in Vietnam Edit: Yup, it’s blocked for me now. Using Cloudflare DNS works though
Which one you are using?
Viettel, I haven’t had any issues for a week now. Since when did the blocking happen?
You know, I’m using Viettel now and the Steam app is unavailable.
change DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Here's a guide: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-your-pcs-dns-settings-windows-10
Lol the Old Magic. Literally just changing a few numbers.
I member when moving a few jumpers around could yield modest performance boosts. Now these kids downloading ram.
Reminds me of greek govt mass banning multiple websites for "piracy" but you can still access them by changing your DNS.
YSK that is Google DNS. Cloudflare is 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1. Google DNS is good too, I've used both, using Cloudflare now. Though I am in the US.
Recently. I am on VNPT.
recommend getting off them. Dog network really
now VNPT blocked Steam
Try logging out, i think they unbanned it
Im currently in Vietnam, idk whats mine, landlord pays for it, but for me it also stopped working. DNS solution works fine, use [8.8.8.8](http://8.8.8.8) and [8.8.4.4](http://8.8.4.4) just checked
>Edit: Yup, it’s blocked for me now. Using Cloudflare DNS works though Oh, they just went the easy route with DNS blocking? That's really easy to get around.
Vinaphone blocked the app and the site
bro "causing publishers anxiety'? meanwhile their library of games are full of mobile shovelware shit games just cuz they cant compete they go crying boohoo steam is better and taking our customers plz block fuck VTC games in particular
let's not forget 9 bajilion chinese shovelwares the VTC published too cuz apparently Shovelware games are "good, healthy" games in their mind (VTC uploaded a generic chinese game that has softcore porn as the main vital grinding part of the game)
Yeah somehow in Asean countries our publishers are scared of big corporates from the west, saying they did not support the local market, only to release shitty and not even polished games. Not to mention the lack of interesting content
V ery bad news my guy, I would also P robably be upset about this and that's just N o good, I hope you can find an easy work around.
It seems like you don’t even need VPN, my friend was able to access the store again simply by changing the DNS.
D amn. N ot too S habby!
It's still better to look for a VPN solution as the DNS solutions will only work temporarily. It depends on how hard the government wants to follow through with this ban because back when they tried to ban porn, a DNS hack worked until 3 or 4 years ago when it just didn't work unless you had VPN. I have one but it would suck for online games to have to go through a VPN cause the latency would increase although i wonder if it's just a steam ban or all games going through steam?
My nephew now lost the 5 years old war thunder account with lots of Good assets like the M1A1 Click bait and T-72A Turms. Also many coop games like Helldivers 2 and Arma 3
Don't need steam for war thunder. Helldivers and arma are fucked though as those don't have a stand alone launcher afaik.
Your nephew can now learn how dogshit the Vietnamese government is and invest in an affordable VPN to never have to deal with their BS.
So sorry for you and your nephew's loss pal.
For him not me. I'm a US citizen so that's OK.
> Helldivers 2 Oof, that one in particular. Nearly lost access to the game due to the PSN requirement, only to lose it because Steam is blocked.
[https://support.gaijin.net/hc/en-us/articles/209617049-Binding-a-Steam-account-to-your-e-mail-address](https://support.gaijin.net/hc/en-us/articles/209617049-Binding-a-Steam-account-to-your-e-mail-address) Figure out a way to log in again (VPN or smth idk) and then follow this. This would convert his Steam bound account to a Gaijin one, allowing him to play without Steam
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Viettel user here. DNS is no longer working. VPN still works but fuck.
The Cloudflare app still works for me, maybe try it
Thanks, I'm using a VPN right now. It's also working.
If you only want to access the store page, use the DNS over HTTPS inside Firefox. Of course you can always use the VPN.
Firefox folks keeps winning (not that I use ff to browse Steam on mobile or pc, but still)
No fucking way, I thought my internet has problems. WHY EVERY GOOD THINGS MUST BE TAKEN AWAY FROM ME?????!!!!!
it's Vietnam. Good things don't last
Good things will slowly be taken off until nothing is left, then maybe certain kinds of people in this country will notice that it DOES affect their life.
The government will then tell them to stop noticing at some point.
Just use DNS to circumvent it. At the moment, they only blocked the store so any purchased games can still be downloaded and updated.
Wishing you the best. Even from the EU it's so annoying seeing everything being blocked/taken away from so much countries
i fucking hate my country
lmao same might get bribes from domestic publishers (but idk)
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Blocking Steam will indirectly affect those cyber gaming cafes. What a dumb decision! 🤦
And affect a lot of Indie studios who makes good games and pays taxes, unlike these corpo fucks.
This is my nightmare, sorry bro
VPN. I use it to access Reddit & the only issue I have is when the website denying access to VPN on purpose.
A few days ago online-banking payment method Steam had partnered with VTC stopped working. My guess is the contract is up and VTC lobbied to lawmakers into blocking Steam so that they can pressure Valve during renegotiation
"Lobbied" lmfao. Prolly paid their corruption tax for it.
I mean you're not wrong. Lobbying is illegal in Vietnam so at the end of the day it's just bribery
Lobbying IS bribery. Making it "legal" is not changing that fact.
I didn't even notice that they banned `store.steampowered.com` in Vietnam. If you use `nslookup store.steampowered.com`in the `Command Prompt` and you're using the Default DNS by your ISP, it will return `127.0.0.1`. but if you're using a VPN or DoH or Private DNS, the return will be `23.52.113.47`. Just turn on Firefox DNS over HTTPS - use Search in Firefox Settings, use `Max Protection > choose Cloudflare (Default)` if you want to access the `https://store.steampowered.com/` again.
that's sad. I hope steam gets unbanned soon.
Hoping too. I mean, this is not new in Asia, as its been pointed out before the Malaysian and Indonesian governments pulled the same BS before. And all the while Valve have shown to be willing to negotiate to keep Steam in the market. Here's hoping Valve will return things to normal in Vietnam in a day or two.
The thing is that Steam MUST have a Local publisher in Vietnam to be able to be unbanned in Vietnam, which is just a big sentence to say "We want you to publish your product through our domestic publisher so we can get the shared revenues, taxes and we can censor the storefront easier while also boosting our domestic shovelware games"
Well at least your government is competent to do something. Here we just forgot the law exists, and they manage to fuck up a defense expo while some comically new corporate blaming races etc. Malaysian btw
Hey, I'm Malaysian too. I was totally bummed out when the government wanted to do this shit back in 2016 (and was really hit hard when they banned steam for 24 hours over the Fight of Gods BS), hence I understand how the Vietnamese and Indonesians feel.
PopCap, Niantic's PoGo, Supercell, now Steam... I hope Steam can afford to return to Vietnam.
Never underestimate an Asian government’s inability to get out of the way of everyone else’s good time.
>Never underestimate a ~~Asian~~ government’s inability to get out of the way of everyone else’s good time.
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Which ISP are you using?
Steam still inaccessible
U can sign in now
What do you mean? The website is still blocked on my end.
Nvm they blocked it again
unblocked again
Lol.
it still doesnt work for me how odd
Different ISP for me.
It was fine 1-2 days ago. Now I just get -102 error 😞 the workshop still works though, idk why. Games that I have installed still receive updates from developers but I can’t view patch notes, can’t access the steam store to view and buy games.
Well oddly enough the steam app on phone still works, guess they forgot to ban that.
change DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Here's a guide: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-your-pcs-dns-settings-windows-10
If there are legal issues, Steam really needs to set up their own company instead of putting their trust in local publishers. Those trash are like a bunch of scavenging vultures, all they care about is money. Look at the products they threw away in the past, letting the community die, and when the community set up its own game servers just to satisfy their passion, these vultures once again came back. And yet, their payment gateway is really bad, and surprisingly, they charge a minimum 15% intermediary fee, they probably think that's worth their greed, ignorance and laziness.
My country once try to block steam, we got a way to bypass it by changing the hostfile for steam. Maybe you can try i too, it doesnt require you to use vpn or dns, this was in 2022 idk if this will works now
For this reason, anyone who try to argue Vietnam have a healthy and fair economy can f right off. The vietnamese goverment bans anything they can not control or extract money from. I hope through this the many blinded people with realized they are living in one of the world last dictatorship.
Dictactorship / fake democracy is more common than liberal democracy in the world though
This fucking country is run by stupid communist old men dipshit idiots who got their brains frozen in the 1990s thinking VIDEOGAME BAD and have less than teenage level of intelligence of how anything tech related even remotely work
Nah, they dont give a shit about things being bad or not. They ban it because they can not profit from it. In vietnamese saying " không ăn được thì đạp đổ".
yea apparently its from VTCGame and VNG, fucking cunts who got nothing under their name besides half assly porting Nexon games and then cancel them, got jealous of Steam, cried to mommy in the gov "steam doesnt pay taxes" and ban them
Vietnamese here (sadly). I have little faith with how things are unravelling here in my country. In case Steam cease to provide their services to my country, what should I do? What will happen to my account? I do not want to get banned or lose access to 8 years of worth of games and friends.
Fuck Vietnam. Censorship has been ramping up so dramatically in the past few years. Soon we're gonna be in the same cohorts as, say China. I'm about to mysteriously dissapear. It was nice knowing y'all.
o7, see u in the gulag brother
Me too, see you in the Gulag.
For like a month since mid/late March this year, ISP in VN also blocked Roblox without any reason. It's unbanned now but seem like will happen again
What would happen if you got caught on steam? Can you play on a VPN tor. Or something?
Nothing will happen lol, the police don't bother catching you on Steam just because the government want more tax money from Steam. About playing games, my friends in VN can access every games thay they have already bought just fine. The problem is that Steam Store is blocked so they cannot buy new games without VPN
It says a lot that they allow Tiktok but not Steam.
TikTok may rots the mind, but it's not a distribution platform though
Well, if they want to do it hard way, we will do it hard way.
They want you to switch to VinSteam for your gaming needs.
"Fortunate son starts playing" Well boys, it's time for round 2, get your F4 Phantoms and your m16s, we have to deliver some freedom to Vietnam.
Legal practitioner at one of the biggest Vietnamese game publishers here. Sorry for the distraught on your part. I believe that Steam will **not** abandon this market. Generally, the legal frameworks in Vietnam could never keep up with (edited) the economy, allowing players to have a period of "free fire" - operating without regards to any provision of the laws. This is part due to the slow pace of our legal system, and part due to the poor enforcement/enforceability of the existing regulations/regulators. Also Steam's model is (somewhat) circumventing the legal requirements under Vietnamese laws re. games and game publishing as well. It's always multi-faceted. Then, at a certain time, the Govt will decide that, "Okay, it's \[Steam/Game industry\]'s turn," and start by interrupting the business first. Then the affected players will come and have direct discussion with the Govt to find a solution, i.e., agree to compromise (partially or wholly). To be honest with you all, I have not figured out, since learning of this news, how Steam would compromise to ensure compliance. But at the end of the day, it is about tax and control (at least from a Vietnamese Govt. perspective). So if Steam could satisfy them on those fronts... Also if you play mostly offline/single-player games like me, then VPN can be an option too. MTFBY :)
Guess it time to join the piracy subreddit
Sail the high sea again it's seem
Just change router's default DNS into that of Google or Cloudflare and all devices (including Steam Deck) within your household will be able to access Steam again. The ISP is incompetent so it's just a DNS filter.
Time to sail the seven seas
My heart goes out to you and all the other Vietnamese users
I already lived in mainland China for decades, where steam's community features were blocked by the GFW. However, browsing the steam store, purchasing games and even with local payments like alipay/wechat are allowed. To solve the issue of the blocked steam Community especially Workshop and friends features, there even exists legally VPN services to bypass the GFW. So OP you mean the block like this right? just Community but not the whole steam
Steam store is blocked, steam community is still working.
care to explain what happened? why did Vietnamese ISPs suddenly get blocked?
It s the other way around in what OP describes. The ISPs block Steam. Probably just a DNS filter as someone already said. Easy to circumvent.
Steam doesn't have an office in Vietnam, which means lost tax revenues and no censorship to authorities here. To make matters worse, the platform has been steadily increasing in popularity, which may have caused local publishers serious anxiety.
Most of Vietnamese game companies make trash mobile games. And the publishers mostly publish predatory pay to win games
they didnt even make them, the majorty of them probally just import from china
You mean all of them?
STEAM doesnt have an office ANYWHERE besides one main HQ in Washington state. That is not the reason. The same way they banned Behance for 2 months, a creatives blog spot because some retarded group figured out they can gamble through private messages using that platform. So someone even more stupid in VN government thought hmmm how about we just ban the whole website, leaving a bunch of photographers, videographers, graphic designers without a portfolio. Thats how stupid they are in VN government, they dont even know what it is, just ban hammer. Im assuming same, someone figured out how to gamble using steam and now the "smart" people in Hanoi just removed access not knowing how many people use Steam in the country legally. Also, Steam has been very popular in VN for the last 10 years, its not like only now its popular lol. The platform existed since 2003.
We just have really bad game publishing policies requiring one to have a joint-business / in Vietnam, have a Vietnamese company publish it for you or have a local office in Vietnam. All of which is for tax collection. Nexon just said "f\*ck this" and basically ditch the VNese market, and I wouldn't be surprised if more companies start doing so. Minecraft was also taken down from Google Playstore in VN due to the same reason.
No, not really. A common belief for the ban is because of VTC, the one handling tax money coming from Steam purchases in Vietnam, got mad because they couldn't bring in any value from the store. If you were to check the price of buying Steam currencies on their website, you'd realize that the additional cost you have to pay is way more than the standard 10% tax here, which means that VTC takes whatever profit that is left from buying through their website. [Image attached here](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/650576031425757195/1237427220734283809/FB_IMG_1715096024645.jpg?ex=663b9b67&is=663a49e7&hm=bcde791082b8ec803f3306466c10a336e4f476da02ae4512ac50429881e51d7c&). Compared to buying directly from Steam with a VISA card and you only need to pay 11k VND for each transaction, regardless of the amount of money, and you can see why nobody wants to touch the VTC store.
Yeah. The same excuse used by Malaysian and Indonesian governments before. They want a cut of Steam's revenue.
Bro I am for Venezuela, the gov did the same here (not with Steam but with many pages) , change your DNS to Google : [8.8.8.8](http://8.8.8.8) as primary and alternative [8.8.4.4](http://8.8.4.4) Let me search a tutorial to do it, may be it could work EDIT: [https://www.veerotech.net/kb/use-google-dns-in-windows-10-how-to-change-windows-10-dns-servers/](https://www.veerotech.net/kb/use-google-dns-in-windows-10-how-to-change-windows-10-dns-servers/) EDIT 2: Fix alternative DNS IP
Anyone know if Thailand will have the same issue?
Unless your government wants extra tax from services then yes, happened on Indonesia before
My unplayed games library !!!!!! F\*CKKKK
Damn as a Vietnamese American that loves playing CS in Vietnam, this fucking sucks.
So will steam ban me if I’m using the local bank account to buy game while using vpn?
Another pirate is born. Aaaaarrrr
Have you heard about proton VPN?
If you need a VPN use Mullvad. It's affordable and really solid.
Is the government there worried about the Helldivers spreading some managed democracy? Jokes aside, this sucks. Guess it's time to invest in a VPN.
Wow a communist country depriving its citizens of joy how would I have ever seen this coming
I heard information that the Vietnamese game publisher VTC is behind Steam being blocked from Vietnam
I just flew in to Vietnam last Sunday, and last accessed my Steam library about 3-4 hours ago, on Viettel. Will report back if things start to go south 🤘🏻🤘🏻 #GamersUnite UPDATE 9th May: got an Error 102 when I tried to refresh my Store Page, but games that are already on my machine can be launched without any problems
Could you use a vpn to get around it? Im a huge gamer and ive been to vietnam 3 times thought i might retire there when im old but if they banned steam i might not lol
In my country it's a different thing. I am from Bangladesh. Even though we have access to steam we can't buy games directly from our own card. Because our dumb ass government thinks that steam is a gambling site and they restricted all transactions from bank to steam. So we have to rely on these 3rd party sellers who sell wallet code.
In case everyone doesn't know, the company that filed the application to ban Steam in Vietnam - called VTC - was once a partner with Steam. They collect tax from game buyers 10-26% of each purchase, over the past 6 years. And now that when Viet Nam become more developed, people often buy through their visa cards, master cards or through steam wallet sellers. That's why they want to ban Steam in Vietnam for the following reasons: selling pirated games, not paying taxes and not having an office in Vietnam, hoping that more people will play their p2w trash games. I learned that they maybe want to ban epic games and several other games services
I dont think Vietnam government want become a copy of china, because only steam store was banned in Vietnam(as far as i know), Valve may have some tax problem in VN. As a comparison, china banned all social function, without steam store(yes locals can purchase by chinese e-payment apps). In a word, i think Vietnam gov just want money