Ukraine's Atomic Heart Attack [Feb 22, 2023, 7:47 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
The Government of Ukraine plans to petition Valve, Microsoft, and Sony to remove
Atomic Heart from digital stores in Ukraine, and will ask platform
holders to consider “limiting distribution” of the game in other countries. At
heart of the matter are the new first-person shooter's Russian roots. There are
allegations that sales of the game directly benefit the Russian government and
that the game is possibly being used to harvest user data. Ukrainian tech
website
Dev.au first reported on this, and
PCGamesN has a statement in English directly from the Ukraine
government:
“Regarding the situation with the release of the game Atomic Heart, which has Russian roots and romanticises communist ideology and the Soviet Union, The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine will send an official letter to Sony, Microsoft, and Valve requesting a ban on selling digital versions of this game in Ukraine,” says Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, Alex Bornyakov.
“We also urge limiting the distribution of this game in other countries due to its toxicity, potential data collection of users, and the potential use of money raised from game purchases to conduct a war against Ukraine.”
“According to media reports, the game’s development was funded by Russian enterprises,” the statement continues. “Therefore, we call for all users worldwide to avoid this game. We also want to emphasise that the game developers have not publicly condemned the Putin regime and the bloody war that Russia has unleashed against Ukraine.”
Supporting developers is great. Let's pretend that these are 100% zero-bad-intent developers. If they're still a Russian company (and they are, with offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg), then they are taxed, heavily, by the Russian government. That isn't a maybe. That is simple truth. A meaningful portion of any money spent on this game will, absolutely, no question, end up in the coffers of the Russian government.
Buying the game would mean that my money may well go to buying a bullet fired at Ukrainian soldiers, or to execute a Ukrainian civilian.
And even one such bullet resulting from my decision is too many. Even the possibility isn't OK with me. It isn't like there's nothing else I can be playing, not given the cost of playing this one.
And that's all assuming that they are, as I said, zero-bad-intent. The evidence suggests that they aren't. And yeah, they're headquartered in Cyprus, not Russia. The tiny island of Cyprus isn't where people go to escape Russia. It is the place Russian companies legally move their headquarters to bypass anti-Russian sanctions.
Buying the game would mean that my money may well go to buying a bullet fired at Ukrainian soldiers, or to execute a Ukrainian civilian.
And even one such bullet resulting from my decision is too many. Even the possibility isn't OK with me. It isn't like there's nothing else I can be playing, not given the cost of playing this one.
And that's all assuming that they are, as I said, zero-bad-intent. The evidence suggests that they aren't. And yeah, they're headquartered in Cyprus, not Russia. The tiny island of Cyprus isn't where people go to escape Russia. It is the place Russian companies legally move their headquarters to bypass anti-Russian sanctions.
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