Steam is perhaps the best gaming store on the internet, but it’s also an incredible place to chat with friends and keep track of your game time. Steam is host to thousands of indie games, triple A games, and many more to come.
This is why when Steam gets banned in places like Malaysia, it’s quite unfortunate. Just recently, on September 8th, the entire Steam gaming platform was banned in Malaysia due to one game. However, even still Malaysian gamers can find it difficult to access the steam website due to restrictions.
So why was Steam banned in Malaysia? Well, it all has to do with the country’s sensitive cultural and religious government ideals. The Malaysian government gave Valve a 24 hour notice to remove the game, “Fight of the Gods”. Valve did not comply, so the entirety of Steam was blocked for a few hours. Valve then worked to clear things up to regain access.
Doug Lombardi, Steam’s communication boss, explained the issue. “Right now, players in Malaysia can access the games they own on Steam… But the Steam Store is being blocked by some local telcos in Malaysia.”
Later, the authorities revealed their reasoning behind the Steam Ban “This action is necessary to protect the users and to prevent untoward incidents. (To ensure) solidarity, harmony and well-being of the multiracial and multi-religious people in the country are the main objectives of the Government. The Government will not compromise on any action that can jeopardize these objectives.”
However, while the government seems intent on keeping religious beliefs important, users are not happy that content is being censored and beliefs/rules are being shoved down their throat. The reason being that the game can no longer be accessed even when purchased, and thousands of other games were affected, and still can be affected in the future due to these restrictions.
With a VPN active in Malaysia, you won’t have to deal with the silly governmental reasoning to block and ban games. There are too many studies out there showing that games don’t cause violent behavior to think that games can seriously jeopardize the “harmony” of a nation.
So which VPN should you use in Malaysia?
Our #1 pick for gaming would be TorGuard. We’ve already written before how it’s a great VPN for steam, and our decisions still stand.
