The public beta of the Chinese version of Steam, for which the publisher Perfect World is responsible, has become available to local gamers. Now a little more than 40 games are available in the store, including the titles of Vavle itself.Analyst Daniel Ahmad drew attention to this.
From today, Chinese gamers have gained access to the official Steam China website.
Currently, only a few dozen games are available in the store, including CS: GO, Dota 2 and a number of Chinese projects. According to The Verge, about 10 more titles will be added to the store soon.
Ahmad notes that Steam China is fully compatible with the international version of the Valve store. This means that users can register in the Chinese version using their old accounts, and at the same time retain access to projects available only for the international market.
However, the Chinese government can block access to the global version of Steam at any time. In this case, local gamers will lose thousands of games and will be able to play only projects officially approved by regulators.
Valve first announced plans to launch Steam China in 2018, which hopes that local gamers will be able to continue using the international version of Steam. However, experts fear that its blocking in the country is only a matter of time.
Recall that for an official release in China, you need to obtain a license. Until recently, this was only relevant for Android. In China, only local stores work with this OS. They are forced to comply with the regulations of the “red” regulators.
Since last summer, the rules began to apply to the Chinese App Store. If earlier Apple allowed publishing any game project there that passed its own moderation, now it will not be possible to implement an iOS release in the country without an ISBN.
Most likely, a similar development of events should be expected in relation to Steam, which in fact “in the gray” allowed the launch of any product in China. This will hit all market participants who did not have time to get a license, but at the same time rely on the Chinese audience.
By the way, it is difficult to get a license. Last year, only 1,413 permits were issued, the vast majority of which extended to games for mobile devices.