No, Ukraine, The World Should Not Boycott A Video Game That Looks Kindly On Russian Communism
from the and-neither-should-you dept
As we’re right at the 1 year anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its sovereign neighbor, Ukraine, regular readers here will have followed along with all kinds of posts we’ve done on the subject, be it on tech-related items or some of the ways the video game industry has organized to help the country get the funds it needs to survive. Throughout it all, the conflict has, in most cases rightly, been pitched as a conflict between good and evil, democracy vs. authoritarianism, and a free and open society combatting an aggressor with all the hallmarks of a closed, censor-heavy society.
Which makes it particularly annoying that Ukraine is now seeking to ban a video game that is sympathetic to Russian communism, may have some ties to the Russian government, and would like the rest of the world to boycott it as well.
Ukraine’s Digital Ministry has said it will ask Steam, Microsoft, and Sony to remove Atomic Heart from their gaming platforms in Ukraine, and possibly elsewhere, pointing to its retro-Communist aesthetic and reported “Russian roots.”
As reported by the Ukrainian tech news/job site Dev.ua (Google translation), Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation (which also provided a statement in English to PCGamesN) writes that Atomic Heart “has Russian roots and romanticizes communist ideology and the Soviet Union.” The Ministry cites the game’s “toxicity,” “potential data collection of users,” and use of funds from the game “to conduct a war against Ukraine.” The statement asks for an outright ban on the game in Ukraine but calls on other countries to consider “limiting distribution” of the game.
There are several reasons why this is not a good idea. For starters, it is exceptionally unlikely that any significant portion of the world will comply with the request to boycott the game. I highly doubt that the platforms in question will, either, even as some of them have gotten involved in some of the industry action to support Ukraine. After all, the justification for all of this amounts to that the game is sympathetic to Russian communist history. A claim which, well:
Atomic Heart’s gameplay takes place in an alternate history, where the Soviet Union is, as I put it in my first impressions, “not just ascendant, it is literally floating.” The USSR makes the world’s best robots, its citizens live in a utopia where those robots do their menial tasks and labor, and even greater things are just about to happen. If you’ve played the Fallout or BioShock series, you know that a game can lovingly detail a world full of astounding promises, yet take apart that optimism by showing the hypocrisy, the false promises, the ego-driven leaders and actors causing so much pain, and the impact on real people’s lives when it all comes apart.
After playing the game’s early hours and reading more about its broad plot points (and without necessarily spoiling it entirely for everyone), I’ll say that there is, unsurprisingly, more nuance than is mentioned in a call for boycott. The Soviet State in Atomic Heart, and its maniacal leaders, are responsible for the death of untold thousands or millions of citizens at the hands of their own robots. There are plans to foist this death on the rest of the world, rather than win them over with the benefits of collectivist effort. The KGB, for which your protagonist formerly worked, are not the good guys.
So, yeah, not exactly the glowing review of the Russian communist system that Ukraine described. And that becomes a major issue for the Digital Ministry’s credibility. When you’re not just advocating for a ban on a game, or any other piece of media, in one country, but a boycott in other countries, it would be nice to get the actual details of the accusation correct.
The other reason for the boycott, according the ministry, has at least some more legs: that the studio that released the game has some ownership that can be tied back to the Russian government.
The developer, Mundfish, cites Cyprus as its international headquarters but has previously shown off its Russia-based offices in a video tour. AIN.capital, a site focused on Central and Eastern European tech news, cited Mundfish’s Russian store website privacy policy in January as disclosing that user data could be transferred to Russian state authorities, including the tax office and FSB, Russia’s modern state security agency. AIN.capital also cites a legal address in Russia in the policy. Mundfish denied collecting data in a response to GamesRadar, stating that its privacy statement was “outdated and wrong, and should have been removed years ago.” The Russian store has seemingly been removed from Mundfish’s site.
Mundfish’s investors include Tencent, the Chinese gaming giant, and GEM Capital. GEM Capital’s founder, Anatoliy Paliy, formerly served as first deputy general director for a Gazprom division, and GEM is actively involved in the Russian energy market. Like Mundfish, GEM claimed to games journalist Kirk McKeand in January that it was now based in Cyprus and had no Russian investments. You can read more about the hard-to-prove but quite plausible web of connections between GEM, Gazprom, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at PC Gamer’s detailed explainer.
So, yeah, more muddled than the first claim… but so what? Unless Ukraine wants to make some kind of sanctions-based argument, is it really suggesting that the rest of the world ought to be boycotting any video game produced by any publisher that has any ties back to any kind of Russian ownership? For a video game that doesn’t actually reference the current war with Ukraine? A game, mind you, that began development in 2018, long before the current conflict?
This is a small example of how you cede the moral high ground in a war of not only bullets, but of the minds of the world as well. Either Ukraine is for an open and free society… or it isn’t. This is not an example of the former.
Filed Under: atomic heart, boycotts, censorship, communism, free speech, russia, ukraine, video games
Comments on “No, Ukraine, The World Should Not Boycott A Video Game That Looks Kindly On Russian Communism”
Pardon me, but…
shouldn’t it be spelled “Boycott” with two T’s?
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we aim for brevity in our titles… 😉
Re: Re: I see
I’m going to spell it “breviy” from now on
Re: Re: Re:
Nothing wrong with giving it a British flair. “Brevi’y”.
Also of note is the reality of Russia’s control of the entertainment industry basically forces devs to have to work with companies that likely would be controlled by the government unless they leave outright as per NFRKZ.
I dunno, if I was being subject to a genocidal invasion, I think I’d be looking to find any way I possibly could to reduce the resources available to the people doing that.
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Which would be a good sanctions arguement. rather than the “hey gamers please boycott this game because it’s pro-russian propeganda that casts communist russia as the bad guys Arguement.
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👍👍
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What part of any means was unclear, here?
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I agree!
Gaming boycotts don’t work, unfortunately, the audience doesn’t care at all about the morals involved in the product they consume. Whenever people tell them how the hotdog is made, the go ‘Oh no!’ the first time, second time someone tells them the hotdog is still made the same way, the get yelled at. When they consistently make the same point about publishers being poopheads and incredibly exploitative towards gamers and developers, they become the subject of continual harassment while games sell and things get prettier, but worse.
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Just once, I’d like to see a story about videogames where it doesn’t devolve into personal attacks on games as if they’re a hive mind, especially those who actively avoid the things you describe. I’ll be over here avoiding DRM, microtransactions and supporting indie developers while those strawmen occupy your mind. What’s weird is that you don’t see these attacks with any other medium – people complaining about the current state of cinema doesn’t end up with attacks on everyone who goes to the cinema as being morons, that’s reserved for gamers for some bizarre reason.
Re: Re:
The worst part?
People not giving a shit is one of those universal things.
Coke being made by depriving other people of their water? NIMBY.
The outsourcing of manufacturing and the long logistical tail to China? NIMBY.
73 million turned up to vote back Trump, then endorsed the insurrection? NIMBY until it affects you.
And I’ll be the first to admit that gamers aren’t exactly ethical fucks to begin with. I mean, look at how almost everyone plays Rimworld (drugs and organ trading, and then there’s the Sea Ice Tribal start…) or the Dwarf Fortress mermaid bone farm…
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A bit of an overgeneralization considering there are entire genres of games that are non-violent by default… like rhythm games for example.
Then again, mass depictions of violence isn’t a problem unique to videogames either.
Re: Re: Re:2
I’ve also seen Pacifist runs of verious games, from Grand Strategy to Platformers and RPGs…
The entire point is that humans are bastards and assholes if left to their own devices. At least until it affects them, which is almost always too late to do things.
2 million years of evolution.
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“And I’ll be the first to admit that gamers aren’t exactly ethical fucks to begin with. I mean, look at…”
My point, really. How many people actually played those games, yet you just used them to attack the ethics of all gamers? I’d guess most gamers wouldn’t even recognise those titles, or even played them if they do…
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“Whenever people tell them how the hotdog is made”
You eat hotdogs?
I’ve only played the first hour or so of this game, but from the beginning it doesn’t seem like it’s exactly Soviet propaganda. It takes place in an alternate future, where the USSR took its society to great heights following WWII and is not an impossibly futuristic utopia populated as much be robots as people. But, things go wrong, and it’s not looking pretty. Even at this early stage of the game, it seems that there’s something very rotten underneath, ranging from the treatment of people working behind the scenes to the suspicious brain-altering substances citizens use to learn quickly Matrix-style. I can’t comment on how it all pans out, but it doesn’t look like a full-throated endorsement of the USSR from where I am.
In this way, it’s no different from, say, Bioshock or Wolfenstein. Both posit alternate histories where a generally toxic political ideology is takes to extremes and then brought down either under the weight of its own ego or by the people who it had to subjugate to exist. Nobody making those games were seriously trying to push Objectivist, fascist or Nazi ideology, it just makes for an interesting backdrop.
One difference in the games is that while the Bioshock games have you as an outsider coming in to learn about the societies following (or just before) their collapse, and the Wolfenstein games have you as a hero out of time who skipped over the last 20 years of “progress”, Atomic Heart has you start as a citizen of the world, and you experience the suppose utopia before the story takes you into darker depths. Perhaps it’s this that triggered the outrage, if you only play the first 20 minutes it might seem like it’s glorifying things, whereas that’s just the setup before the collpase (as far as I’ve played, again, I’ll reserve full judgement until I see how the story plays out).
I’ll fully support concerns about the potential for financially supporting the current Russian regime and potential for privacy abuses, but claims that the story itself is propaganda doesn’t seem to ring true. It seems more like another entry in a long-running literary genre of “what if the bad guys won?” and exploration of the rot beneath an outward utopia, that’s been caught up in events that couldn’t have been predicted when the game was being built.
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Boycott, Ban, or Just Jawboning?
In Ukraine it’s a ban, not a boycott, outside Ukraine, it’s just Jawboning,
In Ukraine, this is an agency of the government asking companies to remove games from their platform, at least in their nation, where they have legal authority to do so, as such it’s government censorship, a -ban- rather than a boycott
Now, to the extent that those companies drop the game, outside Ukraine in response to the Ukrainian jawboning, that’s their -choice- to moderate content on their platforms, as would be players who decide to drop the game.
Reminder of whom you are supporting by publishing this post
I am writting this post from the relative safety of my Polish home. I was granted asylum here on account of my leg being blown off by a Russian mine and thus being unable to fight. But before I did arrive here, I’ve seen people getting brutally murdered. My own mother, as well as my sister were brutally murdered and raped by the Russian invaders on my very own eyes. I could do nothing but watch the sick bastards torture Nadya. They killed her first, but not before violating her. She was a virgin. She was 16. And my mother, Valentina was cut open alive and gutted. I would probably be next, if not for the brave Ukrainian forces arriving and killing the Russians who held me, my family and several other people. Unfortunately it was too late for Nadya and my mother. That was last year in Bucha.
Afterwards, I’ve joined the Ukrainian Army and fought for several months, up until I’ve stepped in a mine that cost me my leg. I was then evacuated to Poland along with several other disabled veterans. I hate myself for not being able to fight.
This is the kind of people sales of Atomic Heart support. This is the kind of people you are supporting by defending the AH devs. Think, before you write.
Слава Україні!
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Your conclusion is not supported by your, admittedly horrific, story.
Every single Russian is part of Z? That sounds like someone else’s excuse about Ukraine.
As for any potential funding of the aggressor’s war-machine, you’d probably get more mileage prodding places like Hungary.
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Not every Russian is part of the same murderous regime under Putin, and it’s statistically probable that not all of them even within Russia support the “special operation”.
However, for those who can’t get out of Russia, they believe Putin’s lies. Even when it costs them their sanity and potentially their lives.
We should never forget that the Russians shot first. We also should make accusations that have some actual evidence to them as well. Otherwise, it’s defamation, and if everyone were allowed to defame everyone, that’s not a world I want to live in.
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Russians’ opposition is to dying, in Ukraine not to killing in Ukraine.
Re: Re: Re:2
If they wanted to not die in Ukraine, they should not have tried invading Ukraine in the first place.
Not that it matters now, anyway. Putin should be glad that NATO is holding back a lot of countries…
Countries more than happy to conventionally reduce Russia into little more than a bombed out crater.
Just FYI, I’m all for boycotting the fucking game simply because the devs are likely pro-war. I’m jist saying any accusation needs to have evidence, and I’m more than happy to change my mind when new evidence comes out.
Re: Re: Re:3
If nukes came out it would be more then that both russia and nato would be destoryed
Re: Re: Re:4
Fact: it’s not NATO that’s threatening to launch the nukes.
Re: Re: Re:5
But yes if the county’s are gonna nuke russia expect russia to fire back
Re: Re: Re:6
No, you Russian troll.
NATO isn’t threatening to fire nukes.
Putin IS.
Re: Re: Re:7
So is every other country do you not realize how this will end in a kamikaze bomb that will destory both side
Re: Re: Re:7
It’s not a troll it’s a warning that it will cuase kamikaze bomb that will wipe out most of humanity just to kill putin
Re: Re: Re:3
It isn’t like the average Russian made the goddamn decision to jump the border either, pal. “They” aren’t responsible.
Mr. Putin is.
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Oh you little liar, stuffing cringy rural propaganda at every possible place.
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Why are you acting the same way that russia is why the xenophobia why see every Russian as if there evil am very concerned that you becoming the same mind set as the the ones that support putin
Maybe, in general, the Ukrainians simply don’t have the time to spend playing the game long enough to learn the broader plot points, nuance, and how things will ultimately turn out for the fantasy USSR world. I think we can give them a pass for the knee-jerk reaction here, they are a tad busy.
This was bad timing on behalf of the developers, though I’m sure they were too deep in the production process when the Russian offensive began to just quit. But maybe it wouldn’t have hurt to put out a statement with the game explaining they aren’t trying to generate sympathy towards Russia, there’s more than meets the eye to the plotline. The could offer up some profits to Ukraine, or model the heroes of the next game they produce to resemble the people of Ukraine. Just saying…
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Yeah, that’s admittedly a case.
But maybe it wouldn’t have hurt to put out a statement with the game explaining they aren’t trying to generate sympathy towards Russia, there’s more than meets the eye to the plotline. The could offer up some profits to Ukraine, or model the heroes of the next game they produce to resemble the people of Ukraine. Just saying…
Don’t think Ukraine would approve, unfortunately. Sure they’d be flattered, but I doubt it would fix things.
I mean, if we’re going to boycott them because a percentage of their investment comes from private firms which happen to be based in countries engaged in military campaigns against their neighbours, what about the Saudi state’s investment in Nintendo, EA, and Take Two? If we take issue with the glorification of states engaged in illegitimate wars, how about some of the Call of Duty series from Activision? What’s the point at which it becomes acceptable? When we’re the aggressor? When we consider the people on the receiving end to be “like us”?
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..said nobody mentally competent, ever.
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Free Speech
Article is a real Hot Take. Boycotting is a strong form of political speech. The author appears to be against Free Speech.
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Ukraine can ask for boycotts and others can say they don’t think boycotting this particular thing is constructive. That’s both of them exercising their free speech.
You are quite stupid, aren’t you.
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Not as stupid as you’d think…
As I pointed out above, given this is the Ukrainian Government, who has legal authority to compel action, asking for it to to be removed from online stores in their territory, that is government censorship, not a boycott, and not Free Speech being exercised
If the companies or gamers drop the game of their own free will outside Ukraine, that is a boycott, and it is Free Speech in action.
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All we’re asking is for any accusation to have actual teeth to it, that is all.
Misguided as they might be when it comes to the power of culture to transform societues.
Toom’s arguments and the whole “Russian devs might have links with Putin’s crony agencies” are a lot more substantiative than the first half of the Ukranian agency’s assertion that the game promotes Soviet supremacy. (The game does reference the war in other ways, like Toom has shown.)
Are we also forgetting that one of the publishers of this game is french (Focus Entertainment), so sales of the game will go to the french government. France is also currently helping Ukraine. So boycotting the game will negatively impact the help the French government could provide.
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I think Ukraine’s not aware, but if they were, they probably would’ve told Focus to drop the publishing rights.
The devs claim to be “Pro-peace”
To claim the game and its devs are, at best, neutral with regards to Ukraine requires either being ignorant or gullible.
And to lie that:
is inexcusable.
(The current war in Ukraine started in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea)
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Toom, would you mind linking the article where you got the information?
I’d like to read the article for myself.
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screenshot of analyzing some of the devs’ anti-Ukraine insertions here: https://imgur.com/gallery/bxAXcUW#jC7gleS
the image links from that post, showing the evidence:
https://i.imgur.com/4C3HN5L.png
https://i.imgur.com/D5Gfe4N.png
https://i.imgur.com/fmtbn8L.png
The developer claiming to be pro-peace and apolitical, despite the evidence to the contrary:
https://twitter.com/mundfish/status/1614903977333637120
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Assuming that the Russians actually believe the Ukranians being Nazis are true…
Here’s some facts about the Neo-Nazi movement in Ukraine.
Firstly, the Ukranians hate the Azov movement and the Azov battalion. Oh, and the Wagner Group bullshittery Putin tried to pull on them was likely NOT appreciated.
Secondly, if the Russians were so adamant about eliminating the Azovs, they already blew up the Azov Battalion’s HQ, right after the Ukranians friendly-fired the damn thing.
Which makes Putin’s forces bungling the whole thing this long even more baffling.
Thirdly, while some people seeing the Azovs gaining ANY sort of power as bad, the fact is they only gained 2% of the votes and ONE seat. Worrying, yes, but all of Europe seems to want to try Nazi ideology again, and we know Putin likely seeded some of that bullshit through the Wagner Group.
After all, since Le Pen is likely bankrolled by Russia, I assume Russian money was involved in every “right wing” movement in the EU…
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Ukraine didn’t have a Nazi problem any more until Putin started sending them over the border.
Regardless of your stance on game boycotts, I’m not sure why this article needed to be written? A country asking people not to buy their invader’s products seems reasonable, and getting up in arms over it like this just seems dumb, or like you have an ulterior motive.
I wonder what sentiment a video game sympathetic to German nazism would evoke. After all, both communists and nazis agreed, that some people must be disposed of by means of concentration camps. They just didn’t agree which people.
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Triumph of the Will still exists.
A game would not be that necessary, though I believe that a lot of people would actually be up in arms if it hits the mainstream.
Sadly, though, there is a terrible tabletop RPG with that sort of vile themes. It’s also bad.
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The United States also put people in concentration camps during WWII, my friend.
Re: Re: False equivalence.
Yes, the United States had concentration camps in WWII, but it’s disingenuous to compare them to the death camps in Nazi Germany. Both are wrong, but one was worse by orders of magnitude.
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Sure. How about the fact that Hitler cited what the US did with native populations as a direct inspiration for his concentration camps?
L
Rare miss from TD
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Concur. Boycotting is not the same as suppressing freedom.
there are many video game companys that have investors from saudia arabia and china, countrys with a awful record in human rights or respect for ethnic minoritys .its up to the consumer to boycott or refuse to buy certain games if they think they provide support to russia or the russian government .many people who live or work in russia do not support putin or the war in ukraine.
this game is sci fi fantasy it does not reflect real life in russia.
I cut them a lot of slack because they are facing an appalling future if Russia wins. And every ounce of fear and anxiety and paranoia has been extracted in blood 🙁
Having completed said game, it in no way glamorizes the USSR, nor looks favorably on them. During the opening, it would seem that the late 50’s USSR had become a worker’s paradise due to their use of advanced robotics, but that’s quickly torn apart when the robots start killing everyone. As the game progresses, the protagonist learns that everything he believes is a lie, and that he’s just a tool used by those above him.
Mundfish, the creator, has a film tour of its Russia offices but claims Cyprus as its worldwide home. In January, Central and Eastern European tech news site AIN.capital reported that Mundfish’s Russian shop website privacy policy disclosed that user data could be transmitted to Russian state officials, including the tax office and FSB. AIN.capital’s policy lists a Russian legal address.
Boycotting is still freedom
Honestly, this is a bad take from Timothy. You can 100% support free speech and also 100% support a boycott. A boycott is a form of free speech; it is an exercise in freedom of association.
As for Ukraine’s claims, I would say first that it’s moot. Ukraine is not forcing anyone to ban it. It is not (that I know of) pressuring governments to implement bans. It is simply asking people to boycott. I see where they’re coming from. Even if the game is a dystopian theme, it still portrays the USSR as a mighty, advanced, powerful regime. Putin probably loves the image his country is given in the game, and that should be enough reason to hate it.
Ban it? Of course not. Boycott? Yes.
Thanks for sharing. It is very helpful for me and also informative for all those users who will come to read.
That’s going nowhere
Reality check, most of the world’s population simply doesn’t care.
It’s a guess, but I’d figure maybe 1/100th of a percent of the world has any opinion on the conflict at all.
Those that do are far from unified in Ukrainian support. Many see the two big facts that underlie this conflict:
This all could well have been avoided by giving up a few hundred square kilometres of land populated by people without loyalty to Ukraine.
The only reason this continues is because the US and NATO funnel people and equipment into it as yet another proxy war.
If they really think anyone is going to boycott a game…? Wow, delusional.
100% agreed
Absolutely no reason for the world to listen to ukraine whine. because of ukraine my gas ridiculously expensive, food prices have nearly tripled and now they are cutting off benefits to our elderly and single parents. I’ll be damned if I let them start demanding things from the world like boycotting a video game. whats next we cant eat turnips or potatoes?
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…said nobody mentally competent, ever.
Shouldn’t you be fertilizing some sunflowers somewhere already, дима?
Russia's provoked invasion of Ukraine by the U.S.A and NATO
A Good and informative article. However, I would like to add that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (whilst unjustifiable in my opinion as it has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people and has also created a massive humanitarian crisis both in Ukraine and across the rest of the world) was definitely not unprovoked. It had in fact been provoked by the U.S.A and NATO for decades due to continual NATO expansion (when senior officials in the U.S.A and other NATO members such as the U.K made official written security assurances to Russia under Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not further expand eastwards past Berlin following the dissolution of the USSR). And then from the late 90s onwards, several Baltic states (including Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia etc.) then officially joined NATO along with Turkey before both Georgia and Ukraine requested to join NATO (a massive red line for any Russian government as Ukraine shares more than 1000km of its border with Russia and Georgia controls of the black sea which is seen as being critical from both a historical and economic perspective for Russia).
Kind regards,
John Ridd