[News updated at 06:00 on 08/25/2024]
The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) has added Steam communities (an online digital distribution service for computer games and programs, developed and maintained by Valve) to the list of banned sites. If the platform continues to ignore the agency's requirements, Russian users will lose access to their profiles and games.
The Steam domain already appeared in the registry of prohibited sites in 2015. Then the sanctions were imposed due to the dissemination of information about narcotic substances on the platform. However, it did not come to a blocking.
In March 2022, Valve's management decided to close the main methods of paying for games on Steam for Russian users. This concerned Visa, Mastercard and Mir cards. For some time, purchases were paid only through PayPal or the internal Steam wallet.
Then Russians replenished their balance in Steam through services of other countries, including Turkey, as well as using the Zolotaya Korona payment service.
Updated: the Steam community has deleted pages with prohibited information, after which the site was unblocked.
Read more on the topic:
Buy a Game in Two Clicks: VK Play Added a Function to Top Up a Steam Wallet
Steam Starts Charging a 30% US Tax on Russian Game Developers