At the beginning of March, Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine who also holds the position of Minister of Technological Innovation, shared on Twitter a letter addressed to Xbox, PlayStation to other video game manufacturers in which he asked for support from Ukraine and the blocking of all gaming accounts registered in the Russian and Belarusian territories.
The appeal spread quickly and did not take long to produce concrete results: the first to acknowledge it was Electronic Arts which, after removing the national team and the Russian teams from Fifa 22announced, with a press release published on the official website, the interruption of the sale of its titles and contents in Russia and Belarus. The text reads: “We have decided to stop sales of our games and content, including cryptocurrency bundles, in Russia and Belarus. So our titles and content will no longer be available for purchase in our store, on Origin or the EA app, even in in-game stores. In addition, we are working with partners to remove our games from their stores and block the sale of new game content in the region ”.
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Microsoft’s toughness, Sony’s ambiguity
Then it was the turn of Microsoft that with a statement signed by President Brad Smithpublished on the official blog, clarified without nuance the position of the company: “Like the rest of the world, we are horrified, angry and saddened by the images and news from the war in Ukraine and we condemn this unwarranted, unprovoked and illegal invasion of Russia. We announce that from today we will suspend all new sales of products and services in Russia ”.
A position that, in the case of Xbox, translates not only into the stop to sales of titles produced by Xbox Game Studios, but also with the impossibility for Russian users to purchase subscriptions such as Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold at official retailers. At the moment, however, it is possible to make this purchase, via a redeemable code, in different sites, therefore to completely exclude Russian players from accessing Xbox services a ban on the entire territory would be necessary. But that was not communicated.
Instead, it seemed a bit ambiguous and nebulous Sony which, without any official clarification or explanation, has removed from sale on the Russian PlayStation Store the very recent Grand Touring 7. The page dedicated to the game simply reads: “Launch date awaiting confirmation”.
Decided and communicated with a speech to employees, shared publicly on the official website by the president Danielle Allegriis the decision of Activision Blizzard, which will suspend new sales of its games in Russia. Allegri also made it known that the company is: “doing everything possible to assist the employees, and their families, who are directly affected by this tragedy”.
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Between Nintendo and Pokémon, waiting for Steam
Again: after having donated around 200 thousand euros for humanitarian aid, the Poles of Cd Project Redresponsible for the development of the saga of The Witcher and of Cyberpunk 2077, have decided to completely suspend the sales of their securities in Russia and Belarus; similar fate for video games distributed through the Gog platform. And Bloober Team made a similar decision for its titles, which they include The Medium, Blair Witch and also Observer.
And if Nintendo silent, The Pokémon Company announced via Twitter that it will donate $ 200,000 to GlobalGiving partners to provide humanitarian aid.
The initiatives against the Russian invasion of Ukraine put in place by the video game giants are increasing by the hour and the situation is understandably evolving: in the coming days this list could be extended, perhaps including a heavyweight such as Steam.