However, as reported in Vietnam.net, it's possible Steam has been taken down in Vietnam after local game developers complained about the scope and size of Steam's vast portfolio of games, claiming Vietnamese devs cannot compete with Steam's releases given they are subject to government approval and thousands of international games on Steam are not.
Citing it as "an injustice to domestic publishers", Vietnamese studios reportedly say that local game development "will die" if Steam is able to keep releasing games without the same government scrutiny as domestic games.
Based Vietnam protecting its domestic games industry from American capitalists. :)
TLDR: the online game monopolies of Vietnam complains that they can't extort the market share our Lord and Savior Gabe Newell rightfully earned," said one unhappy Steam user.
Steam users are so fucking insufferable. They hate all capitalist game companies except this one which they will eagerly lick the boot of.
Mixed feelings bc this is going to cut people off from playing a lot of games with folks in other parts of the world, which to me is one of the main draws of online gaming. But fuck steam 100%.
Piracy is always an option
True, and VPNs exist. It's more of an access thing. Lots of people don't have hte technical knowledge and skills to do these things.
A lot of Internet cafes in Vietnam already use pirated games. But cracked multiplayer games usually cannot play with legit players.
Access to multiplayer games is no great loss to society, imo.