If you want to go somewhere to escape Steam’s spreading influence, you might be tempted to head to China, where the country has officially operated free of Valve’s platform to date (although it was accessible more or less unofficially anyway). That won’t be the case for long, however, as Perfect World Entertainment announced that it is working with Valve to bring Steam to the country some time in the future.
Valve and PWE partnered up back in 2012 to bring a few titles, such as Dota 2 and CS:GO, to the country, but obviously this is a much, much bigger deal. PGamesN notes that the two companies currently are figuring out an initial line-up of games for this version of Steam, which raises the spectre of moderation, limited selection, and government censorship.
This is particularly pertinent in light of the recent decision by Valve not to moderate its selection of games unless studios submitted titles that were illegal or designed to troll certain groups.
Steam as a social platform needs an update. It is full of shiney stuff nobody uses. Even if they could add something simple like custom avatar messages instead of offline online etc. I think discord is making steam obsolite.
Chairman Newell. Who could very well toot to have a better hairdo than Kim… o.O
Cheers, then! <3
haha steam is full of Chinese people as it is wtf…
(I don’t have problem with them tho)
As in gaming platform or as in Industrial Age? just checking lol
Considering the recent relaxing of what they allow on Steam I would say they have zero chance of getting it in China as is..
A logical step. Last week Valve was saying they shouldn’t be the ones deciding and now they are bringing their brand to a place where the government will do all the deciding for them. Problem solved.
For those of us more self-centered, it raises the spectre of “how will my STEAM experience change, i.e. get worse, because of this.”
There’s no way they’re going into China without tight government/CCP control over their offerings. This should be interesting.
Yup, I guess they’ll have to give Perfect World/Sumpo Food Holdings that control : 3