Vietnam's Steam block now hits game downloads and updates
Steam users in Vietnam say the country's block on the platform has spread from the store to the games themselves. Since October 2, players on several internet providers report that game downloads, updates, community pages and cloud saves no longer work, Inven Global reported on October 3. Until now, the block covered the Steam store and payment pages, while downloads and updates kept working. Vietnamese authorities have not announced any new restriction, and Valve has not commented.
The failures are uneven. One subscriber of FPT, one of Vietnam's largest providers, wrote that switching to Google DNS (8.8.8.8) and Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1) did not bring downloads back, and that Steam worked again only through a VPN. Other users on the same FPT network say Steam works normally for them, so the result appears to depend on region and network.
Why Vietnam blocks Steam
Steam has been restricted in Vietnam since early May 2024, when providers began blocking it on the government's orders. Le Quang Tu Do, head of the Authority of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information at the then Ministry of Information and Communications, explained the decision to VnExpress: most platforms comply and cooperate with the authorities, but "only Steam doesn't respond after multiple contacts, so we must block it." Vietnamese law requires games sold in the country to be licensed, and the games on Steam are not. Gameloop, another distribution platform, was blocked at the same time, while Roblox started working through a local partner.
The rules have since become stricter. Decree 147/2024/ND-CP, in force since December 25, 2024, governs internet services and online content and requires a license for online games offered in Vietnam. In September, the regulator turned to the PC version of PUBG: Battlegrounds, which, unlike the mobile version, has no official Vietnamese license.
Vietnam blocks websites by administrative order, without a court decision. Our country-by-country guide to blocking without a judge places it in the same group as Russia, Iran and China.
What this means for players
Games that are already installed can still be played offline, as VnExpress noted when the first block began. Without access to Steam servers, though, players cannot download patches, fetch new games they bought, or sync saves between computers. Many online games also refuse to start until they are updated.
The FPT user's experience suggests the new block does not rely on DNS alone, since public DNS servers did not help. Inven Global does not describe the method, and no provider has explained it. A VPN sends traffic through a server abroad, past the provider's filter, which is why some players got access back that way.
The 2024 block was never lifted, and Steam has not obtained a license in Vietnam since. For now, whether Steam works there depends on which provider a player uses and in which region.
