News

Steam Game Platform Inaccessible in Vietnam

Valve's Steam digital game platform and storefront is currently inaccessible in Vietnam. ANN can confirm that Steam was inaccessible since at least May 7. Neither Steam, Vietnamese internet service providers, nor the Vietnamese government have given a reason for Steam's inaccessibility.

ANN confirmed that some users who were able to change their domain name system (DNS) were again able to access Steam, but this was not true for all Vietnamese Steam users whom ANN contacted. However, Vietnamese Steam users whom ANN contacted were all able to access Steam by using a virtual private network (VPN).

Vietnamese Steam users whom ANN contacted speculated that the inaccessibility is due to Steam selling games to Vietnamese users without value-added tax (VAT). Steam often works with some governments and territories to sell games with VAT where appropriate.

Newspaper VietNamNet published an article on April 22 highlighting Vietnamese developers' difficulty at competing with the worldwide lineup of games on Steam.

Source: Eurogamer (Vikki Blake)