There will be no Steam ban. Deputy Gorelkin explained how the law on gamers and game publishers will work

State Duma Deputy Anton Gorelkin commented on the recent news about the identification of gamers in Russia.

He noted that an earlier version of the law was included in the Kommersant publication. She could have been misjudged.

In fact, there is no ban on external gaming services, nor any impossible requirements. We want game distributors to provide their developers with the opportunity to warn users about the features of game content (scenes of violence, war, alcohol, drugs, etc.). The labeling experiment that some participants in the Russian video game market are currently conducting is fully consistent with this paradigm. And, by the way, already now nothing prevents developers from putting the appropriate icons in the description of their products on Steam and GOG.

The second detail that critical initiatives focus on is that it is assumed that foreign platforms do not even integrate with State Services. But it provides game distributors with three geographic user verifications, one of which is using a phone number. And, as far as I know, all popular gaming services already link your account to your phone for security purposes.

At the same time, the most important thing is out of sight. For the first time, a number of important legislative definitions appear: what is a video game, what is considered to be game items, who are the distributors of video games. We are prescribing basic definitions for future norms that will contribute to the development of these main directions in Russia, laying the foundation for systemic support for the Russian gaming industry.

There is also no need to blame the authors of the indicators for not consulting with industry representatives. We will consider that the introduction of this bill is an invitation to discussion.

— Anton Gorelkin

Gorelkin also noted that the authors of the images are ready for discussion with the gaming industry.