The government of Indonesia has blocked several gaming sites and web services due to the failure of these companies to observe new licensing laws in the South-East Asian country. 

Several services have been hit with the block including Steam, Epic Games, Battle Net, PayPal and Nintendo. Though, PayPal has since been unblocked temporarily to allow Indonesians to withdraw their money (via PCGamer). The blocking was carried out by the government ministry colloquially known as Kominfo who have now become the object of scorn from Indonesian gamers. 

The new regulations would allow the Indonesian government to share specific user data from these sites and allow companies to be sued if they created content that disturbed public order. It also allows Indonesian authorities to compel content that they deem unlawful within as short a time period as four hours. 

While companies like Amazon and Google quickly complied with these regulations, several major gaming companies did not and have been blocked in Indonesia as a result. These blocks are not permanent, the websites will be allowed back online in the region once the aforementioned companies begin complying with Kominfo’s new regulations. 

DotA 2

Though, it would appear Valve is working towards bringing Steam back online in Indonesia. According to Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the director general of information applications at Kominfo, Valve has contacted the ministry to let them know they are processing the new regulations (via NME).

The Indonesian gaming community is understandably angered by the blocking of major gaming storefronts. #BlockirKominfo has been trending on Twitter with thousands of posts criticising the decision by the ministry. Unrelated Kominfo social media posts have been getting numerous replies asking them to unblock Steam. 

Whether these regulations were not complied with on a moral basis or simply because the aforementioned companies were being untimely is unknown. Valve seems eager to get the platform back online as soon as possible in Indonesia, so it may be a case of the latter. 

In other news, Studio ZA/UM, the developer behind Disco Elysium, is hiring for several artist positions with job descriptions mentioning science fiction, hinting at what the studio’s next project could be.