It isn't on Steam China currently, and the process for obtaining a government license can sometimes take years-a death sentence to small independent studios.Īnd, after looking at the Steam China storefront, it's an easy fear to understand. That could seriously affect games like Tale of Immortal, a Chinese-only RPG that launched on Steam two weeks ago and became one of its most popular games with over 170,000 concurrent players. If the Chinese government were to block Steam's international version, those developers would lose out on access to a global community of customers-and players would be denied access to thousands of uncensored games. Though it was never easily accessible anyway, seeing Steam China without the Steam Workshop, forums, community pages, guides, and everything else makes this version feel barren.Ī lot of developers I've spoken to are concerned about whether Steam's international version will stay freely accessible to Chinese players. Multiplayer games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 are trying to entice players with the promise of faster local servers, but considering Steam's initial surge in popularity in China was due to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which isn't on Steam China, I don't think that will win over most players. With only 53 games and DLC to sell, it's hard to see why anyone in China would want to switch over to Steam China. It suddenly feels a lot like what Steam was like back around 2010, when its storefront was a list of games hand-picked by Valve. That one rule cuts Steam China's available catalogue of games and DLC down from 21,131 to just 53. Steam China only sells games that have received a government license certifying that they abide by a long and complicated list of restrictions. The first big thing you'll notice is a completely different selection of games than what's offered on Steam's international version.
In the gif above, I'm scrolling through the front page of Steam China, which you can compare to the regular version of Steam.