Steam, Epic and other digital storefronts are currently banned in Indonesia

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Digital storefronts like Steam, Epic Games Store, Origin and others are currently banned in Indonesia. The Indonesian government made it a requirement that digital companies who failed to register with the government wouldn’t get placed on a whitelist.

As it turns out, a whole bunch of companies didn’t register with the government.

The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of the Republic of Indonesia (Kominfo) pushed the regulation against private electronic systems providers in late July. According to games industry analyst company Niko Partners Kominfo has four main goals with the regulation.

There’s a couple of things in there that seem like headscratchers. If Indonesia is trying to figure out who is selling what, that sort of makes sense. 

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Kind of. 

If a company is selling a thing over the Internet and making enough money in Indonesia to make registering worth it, then that company will probably end up on Indonesia’s list. But if a company determines Indonesia isn’t worth the trouble, and they don’t register?

Then really it’s a list of all PSEs operating in Indonesia going forward. It’s a slight difference, but it seems important.

If Valve decides not to register, just as a hypothetical, then any Indonesian Steam user suddenly can’t access their purchased games. That seems to go against Kominfo’s third goal, protecting