“Steam is blatantly distributing games in Vietnam, including violent games and adult games without asking for permission. This is unfair for domestic distributors. Management agencies need to tighten control over the cross-border platform, or domestic game distributors will die in the home market,” a game distributor said.

Steam is Valve's electronic game distribution service launched in 2003 as a software app providing games. It expanded to distribute third-parties’ games in 2005.

Steam offers a variety of features such as technical management, game server connection with anti-hack Valve Anti-Cheat solution, social networks and streaming services. In addition, Steam automatically updates games, cloud storage, and community features.

There are 100,000 games distributed by Steam and 6,000-8,000 games updated every year. The platform supports 24 languages and is easily accessible to users all over the world. According to VGC, 14,535 new games were distributed via Steam in 2023 , an increase of 2,000 games over 2022.

To use Steam, one just needs to download and install Steam Client, register accounts and buy games or play free games provided by the platform. Steam is also integrated with an e-wallet (Steam wallet), which allows players to pay for products and services.

The distributor said many shooting games are distributed on Steam, with full image effects (red blood). In Vietnam, under current regulations, such games must be edited to remove the violence. The platform is also releasing games with adult content and sexual content.

In 2021, Steam’s Global version was officially launched in the Chinese market and replaced with a Steam version specifically reserved for China. The version doesn’t include 110,000 games like the Global version. 

The Steam version for China is not allowed to have any community feature, with no support in workshops, no sale of trading cards on the Community market, and no forum for gamers to communicate.

In Vietnam, as there is no representative office for contact, agencies are seeking solutions to prevent cross-border services from being illegally supplied to Vietnamese users.

In related news, the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information on April 10 sent a dispatch to Netflix, requesting the platform to strictly observe Vietnamese laws when providing electronic games.

Netflix was found advertising online games without permission on the Netflix app provided to Vietnamese users, and providing many games on the App Store Vietnam and Google Play Store Vietnam without an operating license.

Le My