It appears that access to the Steam Community, including forums, user profile pages, and inventory, has been blocked in China. According to Greatfire.org, a site that monitors online censorship in the country, access to steamcommunity.com has actually been 96 percent blocked since December 15. ValveTime first received the news.
The Steam Community has been blocked in China. Steam and the Steam Store are still accessible. https://t.co/pHJGFX2U4E #steam pic.twitter.com/oDl6FqOSzR
— ValveTime (@ValveTime) December 18, 2022
Store.steampowered.com remains available, meaning users in China can still buy and play games. But anything that requires interaction with other people is not accessible. Why the ban was enforced is unclear, but one possible driving factor is the changing face of gaming, and the gaming industry, in China.
Also Read: Thanks to PUBG, China now has more Steam users than any other country
As we have seen in the case of PUBG, foreign-made products that are too large can be replicated by local companies, forcing them out of the country, or China blocks them and only allows them to return if the makers follow the rules. PUBG faced threats of being banned, until developer PUBG Corp. signed a deal with Chinese conglomerate Tencent for the latter to distribute the modified version in the country.
Chinese authorities have a long and well-established history of acting arbitrarily to ensure profits for Chinese businesses, and this definitely fits that pattern. But it could also be a very direct crackdown on assembly and speech, too – another hallmark of China’s political landscape.
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