Indonesian government says Steam may “reopen soon” after country-wide block

Several major storefronts, games and online services – including PayPal, Steam and the Epic Games Store – have been blocked in Indonesia after failing to agree to new regulations, however Valve is reportedly in the process of returning their games to the country

These regulations were introduced by Kominfo, the government ministry for communication and information technology. The new rules gave tech companies until July 20 to agree to regulation that allows Indonesian authorities to order companies to share specific user data and open companies up to lawsuits if they created content responsible for “disturbing public order” (Niko Partners, via PCGamesN).

However, a host of leading companies in the games industry has failed to comply with these new regulations, which has resulted in most major storefronts being blocked in Indonesia. This includes Steam, the Epic Games Store and Nintendo; while Blizzard, Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA have all had their storefronts and websites blocked.

As a knock-on effect, this means that titles including Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 are no longer playable in Indonesia. However, CNN Indonesia has also reported that Valve is currently in the process of completing Kominfo’s registration process.

Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, director general of information applications at Kominfo, said that Valve has contacted Kominfo to say the company is processing the new regulations. Pangerapan added that “Steam, Dota, and [Counter-Strike] – we hope they can complete [the registration] and can be reopened soon.”

According to Niko Partners’ senior analyst Daniel Ahmad, “The blocks are not permanent, assuming the companies register and comply with the regulation, and Kominfo has already reached out to these companies to ensure compliance and reverse the block.”

The response to Kominfo’s changes has been largely negative, with ‘#Kominfo‘ trending on Twitter with tweets ridiculing the blocks. On Kominfo’s own Twitter page, their posts have racked up thousands of replies from those unhappy with the changes.

In other news, Google has confirmed that Stadia is not shutting down.