Sources | new knowledge of the game
Author | Sunset car, Monday
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has once again witnessed the power of public opinion warfare.
After encountering unilateral sanctions such as removing your tree, removing your ball, and removing your cat, the Russian fighting nation that has always been hardcore seems to have disappeared. Overnight, overseas mainstream websites had a hard time finding their voices.
RT (Russian state media) is known as a fighter in foreign propaganda, and it is also powerless under the "encirclement and suppression" of European and American Internet giants, and European users cannot access it. The income of Russian bloggers on Twitch and YouTube has been frozen, and many Russian users have reported that Twitter and Facebook accounts have been banned and restricted.
The most active and free-speaking gaming areas on the Internet have not been spared. When companies such as EA, Activision Blizzard and CDPR announced sanctions against Russian players on Twitter and Facebook, the fierce rebuttal expected in the comment section did not appear, but almost one-sided condemnation of Russia.
In this silent smoke, Russian players can not fight?
Ignored sounds
As of August 2020, about 100 million Internet users are among Russia's 145 million people. Sanctions imposed on Russia by overseas mainstream websites have prompted Russian users to return to local social networking sites.
Russian users urgently moved to Yandex, whose functions are equivalent to a collection of domestic Tencent and Baidu, in which Yandex.Zen (a subscription service) has decided to suspend the provision of high-quality personalized services other than Russian due to the surge in content volume.
According to Russian media reports, 47%-53% of Russian Internet users now visit VKontakte (hereinafter referred to as VK) every day, adding 200,000 viewers per day, and the number of video views and downloads on the "Clip" channel has increased twice.
The number of registered users of the Rutube video platform surged 5.5 times in one week, and the amount of content created increased by 2.8 times, and it is expected to exceed 100 million users (yotube Russian users in 2021 are about 99 million).
The game's new knowledge has found some voices on Russia's indigenous social platforms, and they may represent the true views of most Russian players.
Several Russian players interviewed told Gaming Xinzhi that they believe the gaming companies sanctioned against Russia will still return to the Russian market. "We don't care about sanctions, and we don't care about the people we sanction."
One of the Xbox players said he could buy games from Argentina through a middleman, and the actions of these gaming companies ultimately hurt their own interests. He highly endorsed Finnish manufacturer Remedy's statement that "ordinary players should not be responsible for what is happening in the world today".
On the VK website, CDPR and Supercell's comment areas are among the most popular of all the game makers that have launched sanctions. The former was the first to condemn Russian manufacturers, and the latter removed the game from the Russian app store yesterday.
Supercell's Brawl Stars is currently the best-selling mobile game in Russia
Players' doubts rushed to VK hot reviews.
Someone pointed to CDPR's double-standard behavior: "When Udong was bombed, where were you a Polish gentleman?" Where is your solidarity with other political events... You're spitting on the whole community of Russian players who believe in you and love you."
Someone felt backstabbed: "I bought The Witcher 3 twice to pay tribute to the developers. When Cyberpunk 2077 was released, I criticized its technical problems, but there was no refund because I believed the game would be fixed. It turns out that there are a lot of Russian players who support the Poles during the difficult times ,but the Poles don't support us during the (Russian) difficult times."
Supercell was criticized as a "clown and hypocrite," and many players called for a one-star bad rating for Brawl in the comments section.
At the same time, searching for keywords such as "sanctions" on the VK website, frequently brushed up on news related to "a large number of Chinese players brush bad reviews for games involved in sanctions".
Some Russian (and Belarusian) game practitioners have also been affected in the overseas "silence" campaign.
Just last week, Ukrainian game studio Kevuru Games issued a statement on Facebook in support of Ukraine, mentioning that the company had fired employees who supported Russia's actions in Ukraine or remained neutral — compensation would not go to employees, but would be used to fund the Ukrainian army. But the next day Kevuru edited the statement, removing the layoffs.
Kevuru is an outsourcing studio that has been involved in the production of Fortnite and has worked with well-known manufacturers such as EA, Epic Games, and Bandai Nangong Dream. According to the media App2Top, about 20 employees from Russia or Belarus were fired for "not taking the Ukrainian side".
Executives at game companies were not spared.
SerB, the creative director of Wargaming (WG), was fired for making pro-Russian remarks on Facebook.
Some people may not be familiar with WG, but when it comes to its most famous game, the large-scale online game "World Of Tanks" based on Tanks in World War II, they may have an impression. Headquartered in Belarus, bordering Ukraine and Russia, WG has studios around the world and 550 employees in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine alone.
WG had to stand up and say that SerB's views "definitely do not represent the company's position".
Dilemma of Russian manufacturers
Many Russian (and Belarusian) manufacturers are currently in this awkward dilemma. On the one hand, they are made up of similar teams, the company is founded or headquartered in Russia, and employs a large number of Ukrainian employees; on the other hand, the public opinion on social media in Europe and the United States is one-sided (pro-Ukrainian), and as a manufacturer, it is unlikely to offend the European and American markets that contribute the most to the game's revenue.
In the face of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the attitude of Russian manufacturers is quite cautious, and most of them tend to be silent. Most of the manufacturers who are forced to speak out have also indicated that they do not participate in politics, pray for world peace or pray for the blessings of Ukraine.
Russian mobile game giant Playrix is the most typical example, the company was founded in Russia, the founders Bukhmans brothers are from Russia, although the headquarters moved to Ireland, but 3/4 (about 3,000 people) employees are located in Russia and Ukraine; in 2020, jumped to the second place in the global mobile game publisher revenue list, second only to Tencent, its "Dream Garden" last year's global total revenue exceeded 3 billion yuan, the highest revenue of the US market contributed 1.1 billion yuan, accounting for 37% of the total revenue.
On the fourth day of the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Bukhmans said that he would provide additional salary subsidies for Ukrainian employees, give Ukrainian employees paid leave, and develop an evacuation plan for them. "In the current situation, it's hard to remain silent because what's happening is a huge tragedy for everyone, including our company, and violence will never solve the problem," the brothers said.
According to Bloomberg Finance, some Ukrainian employees are not satisfied with Playrix's statement. An employee, who asked not to be named, said that someone on their work platform posted that day asking how to help Ukrainian colleagues, and the posts were quickly deleted. Another employee believes that the founders did not explicitly condemn the Russian side for forcing them to leave, "I know a lot of Ukrainians who don't want to work here."
Playrix's latest tweet, posted on March 1, said its top priority is to keep employees safe in Ukraine and shut down its Twitter comments section. Before it made a sound, there were already Twitter netizens calling for the uninstallation of Playrix's game, and after it made a sound, Twitter could still see that some players were dissatisfied and regretted that it did not condemn Russia.
"Only talk about games, no politics" is also a manufacturer Gaijin Entertainment. On VK, it shut down chat rooms for its well-known game War Thunder and overhauled politically-related reviews.
On Twitter, it issued a statement under the official name of "War Thunder", saying that the game content of "War Thunder" is related to military weapons, but the company will stay away from politics, be cautious in words and deeds, and reduce its presence on social media, "We firmly believe that war should only exist in video games."
This neutral attitude also made some Twitter netizens dissatisfied: "Choosing inaction is also a sin... Everybody knows that all the money you make goes into the pockets of Russian billionaires, and you're not going to change that at all, are you? At least that's what we're seeing now."
The exception is the independent studio Ice-Pick Lodge (IPL). First, the founders signed a public statement calling on Russia to cease hostilities — a statement signed by several game makers, and the IPL is the only Russian game maker.
Ice-Pick Lodge game
IPL then issued an "anti-war" announcement on VK and Twitter, saying that it had never supported official Russian actions and condemned the Russian side. After the announcement, the comment areas of Twitter and VK are also two diametrically opposed public opinions.
In the Twitter comment section, most English-speaking users expressed "pride" in IPL's position, believing that its explicit take on the line this time is a brave and respectful thing.
VK comment area, Russian users are not so peaceful. A small number of supporters, a small part of the view that IPL should not express views on politics, the majority of opponents, and some people think that IPL is hyping in the name of anti-war, or to please investors.
Impact of sanctions
Contrary to the silent attitude of the Russian team, European and American game companies have appeared to be huge in sanctions against Russia, and the list covers Well-known PC host manufacturers such as Microsoft, Ubisoft, Epic Games, EA, Activision Blizzard, CDPR, Take-Two, and only Supercell appears in the top ten mobile game manufacturers in the list.
Statistically, losing a Russian market will not have a big impact on their game landscape.
Game research firm IDG Consulting estimates that the entire European gaming market generated $51.5 billion in revenue in 2021, while total Spending in Russia was $3.4 billion ($1.4 billion for mobile games and $1.2 billion for PC games), accounting for only 6% of the European market.
In the case of CDPR, Russian players accounted for 5.4% of the company's revenue in the past year, and its gaming platform GOG accounted for even less, at only 3.7%.
Due to the long-term economic sanctions imposed by the West on Russia and the depreciation of the ruble, Russia is not very good at the economy (the national GDP in 2018 is equivalent to a Guangdong Province), coupled with Russia's strong "crack culture", steam Games in Russia have been priced at a global low price for a long time.
Steam players have almost reached a consensus that buying a game in Russia is a good deal. Affected by the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the ruble exchange rate has fallen sharply again, and the games in Russia are relatively "cheaper".
The recently released Eldon Ring of Law is priced at 2499 rubles in Russia, and its price is about 218 yuan according to the average exchange rate of rubles against the renminbi in 2021, but at the current exchange rate, its price is about 114 yuan, while the price in the national region is 298 yuan.
Eldon's Wheel of Law Steam prices by district
Raising pricing is less realistic.
Players can go to a third-party website to purchase a Russian key (game activation key) for the "jump price". EA's competitive sports game FIFA 22 is priced at 1995 rubles (about 98 yuan), and what's more, for 65 rubles (3 yuan) you can buy Madden Rugby 22 Russian key.
In addition, Russia now prohibits foreign exchange exports.
Stopping sales in Russia is not a financial option for game manufacturers.
Of course, there are also game manufacturers who increase prices at this time.
Valve raised the price of paid subscriptions such as Dota Plus (which provides post-match data analysis, guided outfits, redeemable membership packages and maps, warrior leagues, etc.) while restricting Russian users from buying games, and saw a 40 percent increase in subscription prices.
Some Steam developers set prices in Russia too high, and Bearded Giant Games also promoted a video of the Ukrainian president on the game page. The first three most expensive games in Russia are relatively low-profile, with prices of 14.1 million rubles (about 690,000 yuan), 13.16 million rubles and 10 million rubles respectively.