this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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Makes sense in regards to their law, but holy hell are their laws stupid
As a vietnamese American, my mom always told me stories about the shitty government. Most citizens in Vietnam know the laws are dumb too but can't protest because the government is too strong now. Just know that EVERYTHING is regulated over there.
You can thank America for that
America literally fought a war to try and prevent that. The majority of the population of Vietnam fought to have this instead.
One has to wonder what they would have had if it had gone the other way... would they look more like the Philippines, perhaps, or Indonesia? A "strong man" in Saigon with CIA backing on steroids. Because a whole other kind of just as shitty is still just as shitty.
I think you're misunderstanding what I said, US fought a war to stop it the spread of Lenin/Stalin styled authoritarian communism and failed. There never really was a chance for a proper democracy to rise up in such an improverished nation when both sides were going to exploit the hell out of poor workers without adding any significant value to the country or help prop up self sufficient industries.
You have your history wrong
Remind me again which side won and took over the country and which side fled.
That's what Americans claim to save face. I'm a Vietnamese American and Asian history tends to suck in other nations. America used that narrative to justify invading another country and then dipping out when it was too hard.
I'm still going to overgeneralize, but here's the actual history they don't teach you. (History is much more interesting outside of school).
From the Vietnamese perspective, they initially didn't want/need American help, but about HALF of Vietnam didn't want communism. Similar to Korea, it was kinda like North vs South. America knew that Vietnam has potential to be another booming nation so they saw an opportunity to "help" Vietnam for profit and claim they're fighting communism in the process. America doesn't just "help" for the sake of good, we're a nation of profit and greed.
During this war, South Korea's involvement and then eventual American alliance actually helped South Korea flourish from all this new money they were getting. When Nixon saw that Vietnam was a losing war, he pussied out and ended up moving on to help Korea since that was the next "profitable" nation; even helping in "fighting communism" during the Korean War. Vietnam took a huge L after Nixon pumped and pulled resources so he partially caused the loss, too. Looking back now, America made the "right" call on South Korea as it's now both rich AND has good US relations.
Most of the Vietnamese population today prefers a less communistic government but not much can be done. Government is just stupid powerful BECAUSE of communism in the first place. Like some long domino effect.
TL:Dr America is a sneaky country and does things that only benefit them. They couldn't benefit from Vietnam so they moved onto Korea in "I'm done playing with you" style.
If the majority of Vietnamese didn't want communism, why didn't the anti-communists win even without the US's help? Your narrative is nonsense.
The majority NOW. I should have specified.
The Korean War took place before the Vietnam War, and Nixon wasn't President at the time.
Geographically it was half the country, but population wise it was closer to 2/3rd pro communist vs 1/3rd anti communist. US involvement wasn't really justified to start and mostly sunk cost fallacy with how they tried to support the French rule before France pulled out and US was holding the bag and a doctrinal choice of stopping the spread of communism even when there was little to nothing to gain and only save face. Vietnam was going to have a civil war no matter what but US definitely made it worse and drew out the conflict and ramped up the death toll with nothing to show for it. If the US had any intentions of taking advantage of Vietnam modernising and industrializing they'd have setup southern cities that were more friendly to US investments with trafe and infrastructure. But just like in Korea that wouldn't happen for decades later, US presence there was entirely military and some very bare bones humanitarian aid.
Sounds like the problem here is the "government scrutiny" not steam.
Ooof. What a stupid take.
There are indie studios whose lives have been changed because they focus on the international market.
This small brain thinking will ensure they die.
The local devs were not trying to get steam banned. Hell they wanted steam but wanted to play by the same rules and pointed out how strict their own laws and requirements were.
Vietnam govt said you're right, it's not fair and banned steam to make sure everyone plays by their rules rather than admit the rules were stupid and draconic.
Careful what you wish for - you never know if it'll be granted by a Monkey's Paw
It's not immediately obvious to me that indie developers in Vietnam won't be able to find an international publisher. While I don't approve of the law, it does strike me as potentially having a positive effect on Vietnamese studios.
Given how it can be circumvented by fiddling with DNS according to the article, I doubt it'll really do anything besides stoke negative sentiment towards Vietnamese studios. Besides, you can buy plenty of the games elsewhere, so even if it worked, all you're accomplishing is making it slightly more annoying for gamers to buy what they want, rather than having it in one place.
The problem is, how can the devs focus on the international market when they need to live by the local laws and get approval?
go big red!