Thursday, August 22nd 2019
Chinese Gamers to Finally Get Steam, Sort of
Valve announced that Steam will finally enter the Chinese market. The Chinese version of Steam will be entirely different from the International version of Steam (available in markets such as Taiwan, India, and Australia). Valve's Chinese partner, Perfect World Entertainment, which already operates a Steam-like DRM platform called Arc, will also operate Steam China, which will go under the brand name "Zhengqi Pingtai" (Steam Platform).
The need for a China-specific version of Steam arises from stringent regulations by China on not just game content, but also data-localization. This partitioning of the userbase cuts both ways, as it keeps data of non-Chinese Steam users from being localized in China. Perfect World will also handle the individual screening and publication of Steam titles to not break any Chinese laws. The platform will initially have 40 titles, including Valve's homebrew "Dota2" and "Dota Underlords." Perfect World CEO Xiao Hong assured gamers that they will benefit from high-bandwidth and low-latency servers spread across China.
Source:
TechNode
The need for a China-specific version of Steam arises from stringent regulations by China on not just game content, but also data-localization. This partitioning of the userbase cuts both ways, as it keeps data of non-Chinese Steam users from being localized in China. Perfect World will also handle the individual screening and publication of Steam titles to not break any Chinese laws. The platform will initially have 40 titles, including Valve's homebrew "Dota2" and "Dota Underlords." Perfect World CEO Xiao Hong assured gamers that they will benefit from high-bandwidth and low-latency servers spread across China.
11 Comments on Chinese Gamers to Finally Get Steam, Sort of
Either that or Steam is about to see far more data breaches.
Anyway yeah, good for them, care factor zero for us.... The more those guys do behind their own Great Firewall, the better. So far I can't say the Chinese influence abroad has been beneficial to gaming, much. Not its userbase, nor its content creation.
www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-china/microsoft-tackles-china-piracy-with-free-upgrade-to-windows-10-idUSKBN0ME06A20150318