Indonesia Steam ban

Circling the drain

Who would have thought that as the modern age rolls around free and equitable access to video games would become less and less spread across the countries of the world? Like a backwards progression of availability as all of humanity slowly reverts into it's base most form, first China pulls back on the gaming market so hard that Steam might as well not exist in that country, than Russia is heavily restricted for reasons that should be fairly obvious, and now Indonesia has followed suit for reasons not quite nearly as obvious. One might feel warranted in donning the hat of speculation and wondering where exactly all this is going to stop! In this age of conflict and strife, how cruel does one have to be to try and deprive enjoyment from their few citizens who have the time to game? At least China has a, intellectually bankrupt, reason for their banning's; but considering China kinda has a history for making sweeping polices that are utterly uniformed and obviously disastrous, maybe that isn't the model you want to be emulating.

But indeed, over the past week we've seen bans rather suddenly descend upon the likes of Steam, Epic Games, Paypal, Battle.Net, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Origin and Yahoo. (Oh god; not Yahoo! Who will I consult for answers now? I jest, of course; that service is long dead...) At least, it was all rather sudden for the consumers who had no real warning to start backing up their games, or... honestly I don't really know what you do about losing Paypal. (That's more than a kick to the balls, that's a knife to the testes.) For the Indonesian Government this was probably a very drawn out and frustrating affair with a clear deadline laid out ages ago that a big portion of huge online companies just simply ignored. And the companies themselves, well they must have had some inkling that services would be revoked and yet refrained to tell their consumers until the date was upon them. What I'm saying is that this was a communal week of bad choices all around.

As gaming sites are reporting it (I'm referring to PCgamer for their succinct summary of the situation) this comes as the consequence of a law passed two years ago that requires online platforms to summit user data to the government and comply with Indonesian take down requests for unlawful content. Which seems... utterly misguided and shortsighted but at least their heart is in the right pl- oh wait, and content that "disturbs public order"? Yeah, that's some straight dystopian talk right there, no wonder people didn't want to comply. This actually reminds me of a certain law that passed down here in England at one of the many heights of public distress against our government, when an overnight law was passed to prevent 'loud protest' outside the House of Commons. 'Disturbing public order' so easily leads into 'silencing dissenters' that the mere performative action of referring to it as such is a sheer insult. I don't care how 'well intentioned' and 'morally strong' someone claims these orders to be, if the current administration doesn't exploit it, a following one will. It's a game of when, not if; and the only way to win is to not give them the playing pieces.

And this is absolutely a hill worth dying on, when it comes to discourse, at least. (This should never have gone as far as outright bans. Paypal was banned so abruptly that the government had to temporarily unban it to let people get their money out. Clear evidence how horrible of an idea this is.) If there's one thing that co-existing with the terminally greedy has taught me, it's that if you give an inch you'll lose the country side. The second that Indonesia gets away with juggling user data at will and banning 'objectionable content', everyone is going to want in on that band wagon. Which is to say nothing about the very idea of handing out User Data, which is not only a huge personal violation, but also just not in the best sound interests of the companies who manage them.

I have to be honest, I know nothing about Indonesia and how they run their government, nor would I make any suppositions even if I did; this isn't a blog for that sort of stuff; but I know a fair bit about optics, albeit through the eyes of the entertainment industry, and this ain't good. The Indonesian public are already taking to Twitter to voice their utmost displeasure, as so they should having so many liberties wrest from them in a cynical power move by government officials. But the disgrace spreads even further. To the outside world looking in, this sounds like the beginnings of a twist towards nanny state regulating; and being from England trust me when I say we know all about over regulation. It's a constant struggle to defang overzealous regulators most of the time over here.

But whereas you might think this was some sort of grand standing kick-back statement by these companies, a conclusion I even tried to lead you towards with my own carefully placed rhetoric. (What do you mean I misunderstand the definition of 'careful'? Why I oughta...) I have some sobering news for everyone. Much as I suspected when I first read the details behind this, in truth the problem is that none of the companies got the memo that this was happening, not that they objected to the increadibly questionable stance of these laws and the provisions they force upon website providers. I can say this with confidence because Steam, not too long after their ban, turned around and signed up for the program without kicking up a fuss. As did Paypal and, thank god, Yahoo.

You see, when it's all said and done none of these companies wants to accept any more responsibility than they absolutely have to; and if that means ratifying and justifying increadibly suspect terms just so that they continue business they'll bite each other's arms off for that opportunity. Yes, there's no such thing as moral upstanding; unless you literally declare war because that's just plain bad for business. Fiduciary duties cut above all else. It's just funny to acknowledge the fact that Indonesia published this little questionable snippet into their law books and it would have gone pretty much entirely unnoticed by most people if it hadn't been for this abrupt kerfuffle. One might even suppose that maybe some of these companies intentionally bungled the dates they had to sign up to this law in order to draw attention to it's contents. That's bunk, though; they were just lazy.

There's no such thing as mister good guy business who's there for you and has your back, and there's no shades of grey in this morality tale. It's all muddy brown for the faeces stains the represent all the crap we have passed off onto us because everyone with the wealth and size to do something and make a stand don't give a damn to. Steam is back and functional, which means that will be the end of this conversation in the eyes of the many, and Steam will pretend it never had anything concerning grace their desks and reap all the free publicity. Just like when they 'banned' NFT games but really just banned integration with their API; not caring even slightly for Steam games that use NFTs outside of their API. No one's on your side, that's just the truth of it.