China bans international Steam version

China blocked all services of the international version of Steam tonight: residents of China can no longer use the digital store or the community pages of Steam. At the same time, the local version of the platform, launched in February 2021, remains available in China (it does not include PUBG: Battlegrounds).

The global version of Steam functioned in the grey zone until now. The functionality of the platform was available, but at the same time, it was not officially allowed by the authorities of the country. How this situation will affect the online PUBG is still unknown.

According to Steam Charts, in November, the average online PUBG: Battlegrounds dropped by more than ten percent compared to October 2021 - the average monthly PUBG audience has dropped below 150 thousand people.

PlayerIGN tweeted that China authorities have nothing to do with the ban and this problem was caused by hackers activity:

There's a DNS Cache Poisoning attack causing some players in China not able to access: Steam's store page during the beginning of Winter Sale (Dec 22)
-- being confused for an the alleged Steam ban in the country.
• The last attack happened before 2017's Steam Winter Sale pic.twitter.com/DShiL0LYtb

— PlayerIGN (@PlayerIGN) December 25, 2021