Don't talk about Steam Pills, whose heart will be hurt in the end when it goes away

During the Chinese Spring Festival, Steam just bid farewell to its first Spring Festival special promotion to please domestic players. What was unexpected was that Steam, which "treats the domestic region well", welcomed the "Regulations on the Management of Online Publishing Services" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the General Administration of Press and Publication during the Lunar New Year.

For a time, the panic of "Steam is going to be over" quickly spread to domestic legitimate game players, and some analysts believed that Steam's journey in China would end here. So will the Steam platform, which already has 630,000 activated users in China, really flee the Chinese market because of a government decree?

Does the Regulation really hurt Steam?

According to the full text of the Regulations which will come into effect on March 10, 2016, the following clauses will affect the Steam platform.

Article 10 stipulates that Chinese-foreign joint ventures, Chinese-foreign cooperative ventures and foreign-invested enterprises are not allowed to engage in online publishing services, and project cooperation with foreign capital in online publishing services needs to be reported to the General Administration of Press and Publication for approval in advance;

Articles 11 and 12 stipulate that relevant servers must be stored in China;

Articles 12 and 26 stipulate that when online publishing service units publish content involving major topics such as national security and social stability, they must go through the filing procedures in accordance with the provisions of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television on the filing management of major topics. Major topics that have not been filed shall not be published.

Article 13 also states that those engaged in online publishing services must "obtain an Online Publishing Service License in accordance with the law after approval by the administrative department in charge of publishing", and online publishing service units are not allowed to lend, rent or sell the license.

Anyone who engages in online publishing services or publishes online games (including online games authorized by overseas copyright holders) without approval will be banned, punished or held accountable in accordance with relevant regulations.

The regulations also specifically point out that online publications must not contain content that induces minors to imitate acts that violate social morality and are illegal and criminal, must not contain content that is terrifying, cruel, or otherwise harmful to the physical and mental health of minors, and must not contain content that discloses the personal privacy of minors.

Judging from the content of the "Regulations", almost all of the above clauses directly target the vital points of the Steam gaming platform. However, judging from the nature of the Steam platform and the official ambiguous requirements, it is unlikely that Steam will be affected this time.

In the new version of the Regulations, Article 2 clearly states that "these Regulations shall apply to those engaged in online publishing services within the territory of the People's Republic of China." Steam is essentially a US company that is not registered in China and has no legal entity in China. It is fundamentally different from Microsoft China and Sony China, which have already entered China. From this perspective, it is not restricted by the Regulations.

The service provided by Steam in China is only the game sales and distribution business on the Internet. It does not provide services specifically for China and does not have a Chinese branch. An industry insider pointed out that "the game software sold on Steam is similar to that of Apple's App Store. Both are small-scale software sales that my country has clearly promised to be legal under the WTO framework and do not require any approval. All software that currently requires approval is software that is directly distributed in China and provides online services in China."

If Steam leaves, whose heart will be broken in the end?

Reading through the "Regulations", it is found that the main target of the gaming industry is still the online games operated in China. Several items specifically mention the publishing and operation of online games, which conveys the message that the country wants to strengthen the management of online games and regulate the online game market. If the relevant departments really want to regulate the Steam platform, they should also introduce more detailed measures. Even if the implementation of the "Regulations" affects the Steam platform, the worst result is that Steam will be "blocked" like Facebook and YouTube.

The first to be affected are domestic players. Since Steam extended an olive branch to China last year, a large number of players have turned to the Steam platform. Unlike PS4, Xbox One and other platform games that have already entered China, on the Steam platform, games do not need to be approved and censored one by one, so that players can buy official genuine games at the first time. And the price is much lower than that of console games and other parts of the world, which is very tempting for former pirated game players. After being "blocked", players who have already entered the pit will inevitably worry that the games they have already purchased on the Steam platform will be disposed of. At the same time, those players who intend to embrace Steam will also maintain a wait-and-see attitude for a certain period of time.

For the domestic game market, the habit of paying for genuine games that could have been cultivated through the Steam platform is likely to fall short. This will also affect the enthusiasm of game developers who are preparing to switch to the Steam platform. Once blocked, it means that developers will lose a large number of domestic players, which is undoubtedly a heavy blow to the domestic independent game market that has just started to pick up.

In fact, similar policy panics have occurred more than once in the gaming industry. Previously, Xbox One and PS4 also experienced policy obstructions and reports on their way to China, but they still made it through. From a broader perspective, the domestic gaming market will eventually get rid of its previous isolation and connect with the international gaming market, and Steam is definitely an important window for players to understand the gaming world.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.