South Korean developer NEOWIZ announced on January 17 that their “full burst” gacha RPG BrownDust2 is currently not visible nor available for download on the Google Play Store in Vietnam. As explained in the official notice, the game was likely removed from the platform due to the country’s new local internet and online game service regulations.
At the time of writing, the developers confirmed that the app can’t be found on the Vietnam Google Play Store, meaning new players can’t download the game. Players who already have the app installed should still be able to access the game, though store-related updates and payments may not work as intended. As the reason for the issue, NEOWIZ cites “compliance review and response procedures related to Vietnam’s local regulations.”
Specifically, the company explains that, according to Vietnamese laws, providing game services in the country may require certain measures such as “establishing a partnership (joint venture) with a local company, or setting up a local legal entity in Vietnam.” Additionally, NEOWIZ will likely have to obtain local approvals and licensing to be able to continue operating its services smoothly. The company is currently looking for ways to resolve the issue, though, given the circumstances, an expected date or timeline is yet to be determined.
Just this month, the BrownDust2 development team released a notice explaining that they had “received external warnings requesting changes to certain in-game content,” and announced that, as a result, they would be revising a significant portion of their content and redesigning some characters. However, upon strong backlash from the player community, the developers cancelled the content revision only two days later.
In the revision cancellation notice, it was also explained that NEOWIZ’s goal would be to provide country-specific services without modifying content. This means that, if maintaining service without any changes becomes impossible due to certain regional or platform regulations, the company’s policy would be to “apply country-specific restrictions, suspend service, or provide an adapted build as needed.” The notice also mentioned that they were in discussions with regulatory bodies of a “specific country,” whose regulations and requests likely prompted the developers to announce the content revision. And while the project director explained that he could not “specify the country at this time” due to the negotiations still being ongoing, it is still not clear whether the Vietnam Google Play Store issue is related to the content revision issue in question.
