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Digital storefronts like Steam, Epic Games Store, Origin and others are currently banned in Indonesia. The Indonesian government demanded that digital companies that did not register with the government should not be whitelisted.
It turns out that a slew of companies have not registered with the government.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Republic of Indonesia (Kominfo) pushed for the regulation against private providers of electronic systems at the end of July. According to analyst firm in the game industry Niko Partners Kominfo has four main goals with the regulation.
- Set up a system of all PSEs operating in Indonesia
- Preserving Indonesia’s digital space
- Protecting public access on digital platforms
- Creating a fair system between domestic and foreign PSEs, including tax collection
There are a few things in there that seem like a headache. If Indonesia is trying to figure out who is selling what, it makes sense.
Kind of.
If a company sells something over the internet and earns enough money in Indonesia to make it worth registering, that company will likely be placed on the Indonesian list. But if a company finds that Indonesia isn’t worth it, and they don’t register?
Then it really is a list of all PSEs that will be active in Indonesia in the future. It’s a small difference, but it seems important.
Why is it important? What could happen?
if Valve decides not to register, hypothetically, then an Indonesian Steam user will suddenly be unable to access his purchased games. That seems to conflict with Kominfo’s third goal, which is to protect public access to digital platforms. After all, the public already had access. This regulation could eventually lead to the removal of that access on any PSE that doesn’t bother to register.
Likewise, Indonesians who use multiple services online for their work, such as streamers, have to cross their fingers that they all register. YouTube is registered, but a quick look through the list of foreign companies does not show that Twitch is signed in.
And even if Twitch is there, what is a streamer going to stream until all the different digital storefronts are whitelisted?
But ignore the hypotheses for a moment. The first thing that struck me was the age-old argument: physical versus digital. On Steam, I now have a library of hundreds of titles. I’ve installed a dozen of them.
If I lived in Indonesia I would technically still own them, but I wouldn’t be able to open and play them. The games I only own digitally. Usually the fear is that a digital shop window itself will disappear from the internet.
Now there is a fresh new concern: if a country decides to ban a store.
It’s not an immediate problem. Chances are that eventually all the big, important companies will register and transfer some money to Indonesia for the privilege. Many of them are already making it happen.
It’s just a disturbing look at what could ever happen.
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