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China Bans Steam’s Community Functions

China Bans Steam’s Community Functions

If there’s one country that doesn’t like to play along well with the video game industry, it’s China. Bans are incredibly common there, and one in particular has been in effect since December 15, 2017. This ban has taken down the Steam Community page on the popular gaming service.

Players in China can still play games they own on Steam and buy new ones, but they can no longer access any of the Community social features. Some of the things that have been blocked include the forums for every game, achievements, and being able to view profile pages. Any Chinese players that were previously active within the Steam community are now left high and dry.

One has to wonder if the ban has anything to do with China’s version of Steam, WeGame, which is owned by Tencent. This is the same large corporation that PUBG Corp had to make a deal with in order to keep PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds available in China. The deal allowed Tencent to publish a modified version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in China.

There is no indication as to whether or not China is holding Steam’s Community features hostage until some changes are made or if they want to eradicate Steam altogether. But seeing as how the ban has been in place for five days now, it’s easy to assume that it’s not going anywhere.

Sources: ValveTime , Great Fire

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