Steam Community and Market Unavailable for Some Indian Users, ISPs Cite Government Block
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Several users in India have reported that both the Steam Community and Steam Community Market were made inaccessible. When attempting to visit the Steam Community page, users are met with a dead link, while accessing the page through a web browser displays a message indicating that the government has blocked it. The specific reason for this block remains unknown; however, AFK Gaming contacted one of the internet service providers responsible for implementing the block and discovered that it was enacted based on a government directive.
Despite the aforementioned issues surrounding the Steam Community and Steam Community Market in India, it is important to note that the Steam client itself, along with the games available on the platform, remain accessible to users who have been impacted by this situation.
Update: The block has now been removed. An Alliance customer got in touch with the service provider and stated that the ISP has "removed the block but are still verifying the directive details".
Update 2: More ISPs have reportedly started blocking Steam Community pages in Mumbai and Gujarat as per directives from the Government of India.
Steam Market and Community primarily inaccessible from from West Bengal’s Alliance Broadband Pvt. Ltd.
Currently, all reports of Steam being blocked come from West Bengal’s Alliance Broadband Pvt. Ltd. AFK Gaming reached out to the service provider and requested more information. One of the local offices of the provider stated, “We received a request to block multiple websites and Steam was one of them.”
Do note that not all subscribers of West Bengal's Alliance Broadband Pvt. Ltd. have been affected by this action at the time of writing.
Other ISPs in West Bengal have not implemented the block yet according to information collected by us so far. We asked Alliance why other providers have not implemented the block yet and the representative said they are unaware of why other ISPs have not adhered to the block.
Earlier this week, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s comments on online gaming. Chandrashekhar said that the government has prepared a blueprint of rules that will target three types of games that will be banned in India:
Games that involve betting
Games that can be harmful to users
Games that have an addiction factor
He is yet to disclose the criteria that will determine the classification of games within each of the abovementioned categories. It is unclear if this recent blockade is related to this.
In recent years, it was mostly games on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store that were targeted and this is the first time that PC gamers are being affected since the government’s crackdown on online games.
AFK Gaming is monitoring the issue and we will update this story to reflect any further developments.
