The new rules provide for the blocking of several major gaming services, including Steam, in Indonesia after companies missed a deadline to comply with changes to the Southeast Asian country’s registration requirements. Other affected gaming industry services include Epic Games, CS:GO, Origin and Dota 2, as well as PayPal and Yahoo. The closures are not permanent, but are expected to remain in place until businesses agree to abide by the new rules that have been introduced.
According to Niko Partners, new rules introduced by Kominfo, the Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, require companies operating in Indonesia to register with Kominfo by July 29 or risk “official warning, fine.” monetary and termination of access”. “Now that the deadline has passed, it appears that several major IP addresses across the country have blocked companies that have not complied with the requirements.
Registered names on the Kominfo site include Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Discord, and Riot Games. It was initially reported that neither Microsoft Bing nor Blizzard’s Battle.net were registered, but it appears that both companies have been added to the list since July 29, with some users across the country reporting that services for them are still working. .
Senior Analyst Niko Partners Daniel Ahmad emphasizes that “Cominfo has already contacted [the affected] companies to enforce and lift the blockade. It adds that it will provide additional updates “when these platforms or the government clarify the next steps.”
When asked about the nature of the offer, Ahmad describes it as “registry with additional access.” Niko Partners’ report states that “developers will need to provide the government with access to their users’ personal data, which could violate their data protection rights.” It also adds that the decision “clarifies that a company can be subject to legal action if certain content is considered to ‘disturb public order’, without providing more details about what this implies”.
As the largest gaming market in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is quite an important region for the gaming industry, described in Kominfo’s 2021 report as a $1 billion gaming market with more than 170 million users. How this story unfolds and whether companies like Valve decide to abide by the new rules remains to be seen, but we’ll keep you posted on any major developments.
In July, Valve also introduced its own set of new rules that prohibit the use of text in Steam game art. In a recent update from Experimental Labs, the Steam Discovery queue was also changed on the PC store.
Source : PC Gamesn
