- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
- games@hexbear.net
- steam@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
- games@hexbear.net
- steam@lemmy.world
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as reported in Vietnam.net, it’s possible Steam has been taken down in Vietnam after local game developers complained about the scope and size of Steam’s vast portfolio of games, claiming Vietnamese devs cannot compete with Steam’s releases given they are subject to government approval and thousands of international games on Steam are not.
Citing it as “an injustice to domestic publishers”, Vietnamese studios reportedly say that local game development “will die” if Steam is able to keep releasing games without the same government scrutiny as domestic games.
Makes sense in regards to their law, but holy hell are their laws stupid
As a vietnamese American, my mom always told me stories about the shitty government. Most citizens in Vietnam know the laws are dumb too but can’t protest because the government is too strong now. Just know that EVERYTHING is regulated over there.
You can thank America for that
America literally fought a war to try and prevent that. The majority of the population of Vietnam fought to have this instead.
One has to wonder what they would have had if it had gone the other way… would they look more like the Philippines, perhaps, or Indonesia? A “strong man” in Saigon with CIA backing on steroids. Because a whole other kind of just as shitty is still just as shitty.
I think you’re misunderstanding what I said, US fought a war to stop it the spread of Lenin/Stalin styled authoritarian communism and failed. There never really was a chance for a proper democracy to rise up in such an improverished nation when both sides were going to exploit the hell out of poor workers without adding any significant value to the country or help prop up self sufficient industries.
You have your history wrong
Remind me again which side won and took over the country and which side fled.
remind me which side dumped agent orange indiscrimentaly over populations of feudal women and children
America literally fought a war to try and prevent that.
Are you serious?
America entered the war because France was trying and failing to maintain its slave colony in Vietnam.
The only thing America was trying to prevent was democracy from manifesting.
That’s what Americans claim to save face. I’m a Vietnamese American and Asian history tends to suck in other nations. America used that narrative to justify invading another country and then dipping out when it was too hard.
I’m still going to overgeneralize, but here’s the actual history they don’t teach you. (History is much more interesting outside of school).
From the Vietnamese perspective, they initially didn’t want/need American help, but about HALF of Vietnam didn’t want communism. Similar to Korea, it was kinda like North vs South. America knew that Vietnam has potential to be another booming nation so they saw an opportunity to “help” Vietnam for profit and claim they’re fighting communism in the process. America doesn’t just “help” for the sake of good, we’re a nation of profit and greed.
During this war, South Korea’s involvement and then eventual American alliance actually helped South Korea flourish from all this new money they were getting. When Nixon saw that Vietnam was a losing war, he pussied out and ended up moving on to help Korea since that was the next “profitable” nation; even helping in “fighting communism” during the Korean War. Vietnam took a huge L after Nixon pumped and pulled resources so he partially caused the loss, too. Looking back now, America made the “right” call on South Korea as it’s now both rich AND has good US relations.
Most of the Vietnamese population today prefers a less communistic government but not much can be done. Government is just stupid powerful BECAUSE of communism in the first place. Like some long domino effect.
TL:Dr America is a sneaky country and does things that only benefit them. They couldn’t benefit from Vietnam so they moved onto Korea in “I’m done playing with you” style.
If the majority of Vietnamese didn’t want communism, why didn’t the anti-communists win even without the US’s help? Your narrative is nonsense.
The majority NOW. I should have specified.
The Korean War took place before the Vietnam War, and Nixon wasn’t President at the time.
Geographically it was half the country, but population wise it was closer to 2/3rd pro communist vs 1/3rd anti communist. US involvement wasn’t really justified to start and mostly sunk cost fallacy with how they tried to support the French rule before France pulled out and US was holding the bag and a doctrinal choice of stopping the spread of communism even when there was little to nothing to gain and only save face. Vietnam was going to have a civil war no matter what but US definitely made it worse and drew out the conflict and ramped up the death toll with nothing to show for it. If the US had any intentions of taking advantage of Vietnam modernising and industrializing they’d have setup southern cities that were more friendly to US investments with trafe and infrastructure. But just like in Korea that wouldn’t happen for decades later, US presence there was entirely military and some very bare bones humanitarian aid.
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Sounds like the problem here is the “government scrutiny” not steam.
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Love how people like you have to bring in NATO into everything. As if it has anything to do with Vietnam banning Steam.
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What exactly do you think NATO has to do with this situation?
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I don’t think you have the slightest clue about what NATO actually is.
Because they have nothing to do with Vietnam choosing to ban steam.
So if I publish a game on steam I am now a colonizer? If I am a Vietnamese citizen who downloads a game that hasn’t gone through “government scrutiny” am I now a collaborator? What if I am a Vietnamese game developer that has published directly to steam without giving a shit about whatever censorship my government is trying to implement? Should I be sent to reeducation?
Government scrutiny means devs need the govs approval to release games, hurting their devs
The government scrutiny sounds like it is hurting the devs not protecting them
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pawb.social
I wonder if they know they’ve got nazifurs on their fed. Wouldn’t surprise me if they do and don’t care; but… I wonder if they know.
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Ooof. What a stupid take.
There are indie studios whose lives have been changed because they focus on the international market.
This small brain thinking will ensure they die.
The local devs were not trying to get steam banned. Hell they wanted steam but wanted to play by the same rules and pointed out how strict their own laws and requirements were.
Vietnam govt said you’re right, it’s not fair and banned steam to make sure everyone plays by their rules rather than admit the rules were stupid and draconic.
Careful what you wish for - you never know if it’ll be granted by a Monkey’s Paw
It’s not immediately obvious to me that indie developers in Vietnam won’t be able to find an international publisher. While I don’t approve of the law, it does strike me as potentially having a positive effect on Vietnamese studios.
Given how it can be circumvented by fiddling with DNS according to the article, I doubt it’ll really do anything besides stoke negative sentiment towards Vietnamese studios. Besides, you can buy plenty of the games elsewhere, so even if it worked, all you’re accomplishing is making it slightly more annoying for gamers to buy what they want, rather than having it in one place.
The problem is, how can the devs focus on the international market when they need to live by the local laws and get approval?
go big red!
Governmental approval on games is an unbelievably dumb idea. Banning online game markets is not a solution; changing the laws is.
Why would we allow an unregistered company to provide their service and affect registered companies.
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Today I learned Texas is communist.
Wrong type of red unfortunately 😔
I guarantee you, they’re not communist, they’re authoritarian.
Capitalist states are also authoritarian. In fact all states are.
Frederick Engels, 1872, On Authority
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
The Vietnamese state itself will tell you that it has not yet reached its end-goal of communism: the absence of social classes and withering away of the state.
There’s nothing sadder than a self-proclaimed Marxist who is unable to understand how to apply Marxist thought to the leninist state.
I don’t think anyone knows what your smug vageposting is supposed to mean but you.
You would understand if, on top of reading theory, you took the time to understand it.
More vagueposting. You assume a lot. Are you a mind reader? No, you’re a shit-talking dumbass on the internet.
“You would understand it if you understood it.”
Yeah, somehow I don’t think that wasn’t as clever as you probably thought it was.
can’t believe i caught an unironic use of “read theory” in the wild.
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Po-tae-to po-tat-to as far a cold war communist states were concerned.
And of course, we should trust in the judgment of autocratic dictators on matters of ideology.
They’re about as communist as North Korea is democratic. Don’t believe the names.
F to all vietnamese brothers & sisters. I wonder if they also banned Epic and the others
I’d say already, not also
That’s Sovereignty.
Assuming approval is a strict requirement, a middle ground solution would be an open source, federatable, steam clone, operated locally. Have an approving committee to priorise approving games from local developers, and working on evaluating international games after all local games are dealt with.
That’s for sure similarly efficient to gaming industry distributors system, where you need companies with the right connections to launch games in big platforms, like sony’s, nintendo’s, or microsoft’s. Or event steam’s, to a minor extent. Which also veto games not aligned to their opaque terms and conditions.
Also, it would improve international competition, with the removal of the technology barrier of entry, distribution costs would lower, games would become cheaper, and the share retained by creators and developers would be increased.
Long live, a collaborative approach to technology! Long live smaller profit margins! Long live open source!
How do you even stop distribution of malware though? For a second or two I thought this would be a really cool idea to start working on; but assuming everyone can spin up their own instance there’s nothing that would stop someone with evil intentions to create a fake store that federates with all good storefronts.
Same as torrents, some form of signing keys?
I was thinking federation for the social aspect of it, not the distribution aspect of it.
Distribution would be “the usual”. Stores acquire software, and licenses, store and serve the data through a server. Client software solve installation and integration between games and social stuff, like friends, messages, networking and achievements.
I mean, it’s not a one person project, but if I were supreme leader of Vietnam and had the people and resources to be working on providing video game entertainment for the masses, that’s how I’d be thinking about it. Not that software skills and supreme leader skills have any overlap…
This is only possible because Steam is (1) anti-libre software plus (2) service as a software substitute.
Based.
I hated steam when it started. I’ve grown to realize it’s much better than any alternative. But I still miss the pre-steam days.
I was furious that I had to download steam and install steam to play new vegas on pc at launch (as well as the box I bought from gamestop not having a the game inside but rather just a pamphlet with a cd key) I was later infuriated by New Vegas at launch and the utterly broken state of the game with each week a new but preventing progress or outright crashing game.
But now days I’m reasonable happy with (Steam) it, it’s not a perfect a solution but at least tries to uphold the gamer/consumer experience, unlike shotboxes like origin or epic games which were nonstop ads and snooping through your files outside the directory.
It’s hardly banned. Vietnamese people are still playing steam. It’s really easy to get around and it’s not a crime to use steam in the country.
ITT: reasons why gamers should be rounded up and put into re-education camps.
God damn I just bought a whole data center in Vietnam to VPN to for gaming specifically
Why would you do that?
because I like pho
its good that they can, but what? this sounds like old people decisions, where they don’t quite get it and do something like this.
games don’t need that much scrutiny if you can enforce age restrictions in the first place.
Good for them. Interested in what vietnamese indie devs produce in the coming years
Based.
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Ok, clown.
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I wonder why this comment got deleted, too
The account got banned, in fact. Considering what the comment was, that tells you a lot about this server’s admins and politics.
Me too
Edit: I think I remember what I wrote, and I’m pretty sure it landed me a 5 day account ban. Though I feel that that was a touch heavy handed, and unnecessary.
Lemmy: “We hate capitalism! Companies aren’t your friends! Down with corporrations! Down with billionaires!”
Also Lemmy: “Except Steam! We love vidyagames! Valve is friend! Gaben is bae! No, we don’t understand irony.”
I mean, gabe has yet to do anything to piss me off yet. At this point I’m looking directly at the head of whatever organization.
Also this is a dumb take, if everyone had the same ideals on Lemmy then you would be part of this, you’re seeing different posts by different people and conflating the two
Valve has faced criticisms from former employees in the past for its toxic work culture. And Gabe Newell, being the CEO, has a lot of power over that.
Just because the places you frequent on the internet don’t shove criticism of Valve down your throat the same way it would do so for, say, Epic Games, doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with Valve as a company. All the pro-Valve/Steam information you get and the general sentiment towards Gabe Newell from people on Lemmy and Reddit are pure, undiluted corporate propaganda. That it comes from Steam users rather than being something Steam directs and pays for doesn’t change what it is.
you’re seeing different posts by different people and conflating the two
This ignores the reality that Lemmy is, at least in the part of it consisting of lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, and others, overwhelmingly leftist. This comment also attempts to dismiss the underlying criticism that Lemmy as a whole has a culture that, much like reddit, seeks to pick and choose its targets under capitalism and actively engages in corporate apologia, like in this post, while collectively professing a broad ethos that is outright hypocritical when viewed in the light of that other behavior. And if you think Lemmy is amenable to a diverse array of economic opinions, then maybe you should try posting a “Capitalism Appreciation Thread” on a major lemmy instance and see how that goes over.
If you’re admitting that part of or the majority of Lemmy is leftist. (Which, who cares) Then say that. don’t post Lemmy: also lemmy:, (meaning everyone) and try to backtrack after the fact.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say.
lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, and others, overwhelmingly leftist.
That’s some of the funniest shit I’ve read today.
Everyone has accused every workplace of toxic culture. At this point I’m pretty sure going to someone and asking them to do their fucking job is toxicity.
Everyone has accused every workplace of toxic culture. At this point I’m pretty sure going to someone and asking them to do their fucking job is toxicity.
We have reached levels of bootlicking with this comment that shouldn’t be physically possible.
How many breakdowns per day do you have at work?
Stop making me agree with the .ml user, this shit is cringe.
if you love capitalism so much, how many means of production do you own?
I hate capitalism. And Valve. Because it’s a capitalist institution and I’m at least consistent.
you know commerce and trade, including money, exists under other forms of monetary governance?
Ah Of course. It is impossible to criticize any actions taking place by any entity against a capitalist entity without defending capitalism yourself. Cehckmate liberals.
It is impossible to criticize any actions taking place by any entity against a capitalist entity without defending capitalism yourself.
It depends on the purpose and shape of that criticism. If you criticize a communist nation banning a particular corporation’s marketplace from their country on the basis that doing so is a part of a grift that seeks to engineer a national-level monopoly over a particular corporate sector by banning external competition, then, sure, that’s a valid criticism because the intent is innately unethical. But if the Vietnamese video game industry is actively harmed by Steam, an American company, using its vast resources to outcompete Vietnamese publishers, then what is your opposition to this that doesn’t encompass a de facto defense of free market capitalism?
I don’t think steam is doing that the government of vietnam isn’t claiming they are banning steam for that reason. What is happening is that the government of vietnam is actively hurting their domestic video game developers because they have instituted onerous “government scrutiny” whereas if you want to publish on Steam it costs like $150 and an email address.
The problem solely lies with the Vietnamese government, as a self-inflicted problem, no where else.
But if the Vietnamese video game industry is actively harmed by Steam, an American company, using its vast resources to outcompete Vietnamese publishers, then what is your opposition to this that doesn’t encompass a de facto defense of free market capitalism?
Not GP but the article didn’t say that Steam outcompeted local developers by “using its vast resources”. On the contrary, it alleged that local developers cannot compete on Steam with international developers, because those do not have to apply the local regulations:
Citing it as “an injustice to domestic publishers”, Vietnamese studios reportedly say that local game development “will die” if Steam is able to keep releasing games without the same government scrutiny as domestic games.
A somewhat shaky argument considering that the same is true for many other countries applying their own local regulations, which Vietnamese developers do not have to follow.
But anyway, what is my opposition that doesn’t encompass a de facto defence of free market capitalism? The damage to the users. What about all the Vietnamese people losing access to Steam’s online features, which are arguably necessary nowadays for many games, especially multiplayer ones. And for what? To benefit Vietnamese businesses? Not very socialist of you comrade Vietnam. *smh*
In any case, this is all pure speculation at this point, since both parties have yet to make a statement about the situation:
At the time of writing, there’s been no formal word from Vietnamese authorities or Steam about the “ban”, […]
That said, my current head cannon goes something like this:
Vietnamese devs: Dude, these regulations on games are killing us. We can’t compete on Steam with games like these.
The Party: Okay we hear you. *bans Steam*
Vietnamese devs: Wait, what? (← we are here)Edit: formatting
it alleged that local developers cannot compete on Steam with international developers, because those do not have to apply the local regulations:
That’s not really contrary to the point, but orthogonal to it. Steam is outcompeting on the basis that it receives special privileges on the basis of its international status. It’s still outcompeting because of a resource advantage. But that advantage exists because domestic developers are disadvantaged by virtue of national regulations over domestic developers.
what is my opposition that doesn’t encompass a de facto defence of free market capitalism? The damage to the users. What about all the Vietnamese people losing access to Steam’s online features, which are arguably necessary nowadays for many games, especially multiplayer ones.
Your argument is the same kind of “consumer rights” argument that I’ve seen everywhere on the internet, because you are implying that there is material harm to the people of Vietnam caused by Steam’s banning. Which is a fairly specious argument. It’s the loss of a luxury item. No one is materially harmed by it. It’s not like Vietnam banned insulin. And while you may not use the same language, you are effectively saying that every consumer on the planet should have free access to the best products available for whatever “thing” they want. In this case, video games. It’s a de facto argument for free market economic policies.
That’s not really contrary to the point, but orthogonal to it.
What? According to the article based on which we are discussing this news that is the point (allegedly). And it is unrelated to your point yes. I’m not entirely sure where you even came up with your point to be honest.
Your argument is the same kind of “consumer rights” argument that I’ve seen everywhere on the internet, because you are implying that there is material harm to the people of Vietnam caused by Steam’s banning. Which is a fairly specious argument. It’s the loss of a luxury item. No one is materially harmed by it.
I guess the consumers, i.e. the people of Vietnam in possession of this luxury item, would disagree with that assessment. Especially if they have sunk significant finances and/or time into their Steam account.
It’s not like Vietnam banned insulin.
Nobody said it is?
And while you may not use the same language, you are effectively saying that every consumer on the planet should have free access to the best products available for whatever “thing” they want. In this case, video games.
Again, what? I’m saying people will want to keep access to something they already paid for, their games on Steam and the according metadata like savegames, multiplayer access, and such. Not sure how you managed to pull this interpretation out of what I said, but be assured it’s incorrect.
It’s a de facto argument for free market economic policies.
Since the whole logic chain that led you to this conclusion was already riddled with errors from the very beginning this is simply a non sequitur.
Point taken, but come the fuck on, there isn’t any other store coming remotely close to it
No ethical consumption and all that, just enjoy your life a little
They’re blinded by love. And they love to hate.
Wait till they find out about Linus Torvalds’ net worth 😅
Linus Torvalds net worth could be way higher if he took jobs a big tech companies (that were easily available to him) instead of choosing a career path that ensure Linux’ independence.
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Your head must rattle like a maraca when you walk around due to those four loose braincells just bouncing around
For anyone curious, it’s around 150 million USD.
150 million is nothing for what Linus has control over. That’s like the combined net worth of 100 of the top paid strippers in Vegas. (I’m going by vice documentary numbers)
Lol, bootlicker 😅
Exactly. Fuck the rich unless I use what they made for me, then give 'm billions because millions ain’t hardly enough for them.
What’s your point? Socialism doesn’t mean be you have to be poor, socialism is about getting the full value of your work. If your work is so valuable it makes you a multi-millionaire then from a socialist perspective that’s completely fine. Your point makes sense only if you have no fucking clue what socialism is.
It sounds like you’re arguing with yourself as I have never mentioned any of those words.
If it’s not that then sorry for giving your insane rambling a modicum of rational context.
Damn commies, refusing to allow people to install DRM-ridden proprietary spyware from in the US. They just hate our fr$$dom! 👺
I don’t think that is reasoning for banning steam, especially considering that many games on steam aren’t DRMd at all.
Do you have proof of the Spyware claims? Those are serious accusations!
It’s a troll don’t feed them.
Good
Why?
Less data siphoned off to the USA. Less markets for a US company. One avenue less for western propaganda.
Didn’t you know? it’s good when US bans/sanctions foreign companies, when other countries does it, it’s AUTHORITARIAN. And companies in US are totally not in bed with the government.
Everyone else must run spyware “Made in the USA” or else you’re causing some irreparable harm of sorts.
Don’t some games in steam run Anticheat as rootkits? That’s totally okay, because it’s from the great USA.
Totally not an attack vector. I swear.
FREEEEEDOM.
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It might suprise you, but entertainment products are always propagandistic. A good example is the entire CoD series which glorifies western militaries and demonizes its enemies, going so far as to pin western warcrimes on other countries. Hint: Not Russia invaded Iraq, it was the USA. So the mowing down of a entire high speed road full of people, known as the “highway of death”, was done by the USA.
Or the wonderfull Hearts of Irons 4, which depicts Stalins supposed paranoia as game mechanic, but conveniently “left out” the Holocaust and the genocidal aspect of the entire operation Barbarossa. Guess it’s easier to play Germany when the game does not tell you what your victory means for tens of millions. Hint: These millions get exterminated to make space for german settlers.
Or the always cherished Hollywood with all its movies somehow making the US the good guy, might be related to all the US army toys they get to show in their movies. Which is the case, they get to use the toys, but have to make government approved stories.
“Propaganda” ultimately is a synomym for “advertisement”, the preferability or desireability of a product, narative or ideology is advertised to the recipient. Regarding entertainment products, obviously the views, ideas and ideology of the creators are advertised to the consumer. It is propagandized, so to say. These things might be beign, neutral or heinous. But propaganda in any case.
So per definition everything is propaganda. Welcome to reality, I hope you enjoy your stay.
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