Russian Game Developers & Ukraine Crisis

[SveNitoR]

To bring the thread back on topic, another message from ROCKFISH, the devs behind Everspace 2. Nice of them There's a good relationship in the gaming community, as always, at least at the indie level.

Important Message to our Community

Spoiler

Greetings, pilots,

CEO and 1st communication officer of ROCKFISH Games here with an important message to our community.

Like pretty much everyone in the world, we’re also shocked by the Russian army invading the sovereign state of Ukraine; bombing cities, and killing civilians including children—there’s absolutely no excuse for such an aggressive ambush.

Now, we have lots of dear friends in both countries, and we know from our hearts that the vast majority of Russians don’t want this war and were as surprised as we were. We have seen Russian citizens going onto the streets to protest against the war, risking fierce consequences from the authorities while Ukrainians risk their lives to fight for democracy and freedom against a massive invading military force.

With Ukraine so close to us and refugees pouring into Poland, Germany, and other neighboring countries, we wanted to help. As first measures from a self-funded 22 dev indie team, we donated 10,000 EUR to the International Committee of the Red Cross and joined the Help Ukraine Gamedev Initiative: We have begun retrofitting our studio in Hamburg, so we can accommodate up to 20 war refugees and provide for their daily needs. We will also join upcoming game bundles organized by various initiatives to further donate to humanitarian organizations to help the suffering Ukrainian people.

We won’t pull any of our games from stores, change prices, or ban players from Russia and Belarus (all our games on Steam and GOG are DRM free, the Russian Ruble is crashing hard, and certain regional payments are blocked anyway). However, we will withhold the announced Russian translation for EVERSPACE 2 until a ceasefire and peace talks begin.

We understand that this would inevitably cause quite a heated debate in the comments, but especially as a German studio knowing from our very own country's dark history, we cannot stay silent and continue with business as usual. We want to send a clear and strong message to our entire community that what the Russian government is doing is a horrible, horrible mistake. Our hearts and thoughts go out to the people of Ukraine.

Hope to see y’all in a better world tomorrow, ���� ����
Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team

Are Rockfish Russian? Or do they have a Russian office?

 

[Redglyph]

Are Rockfish Russian? Or do they have a Russian office?

Not as far as I know, they're German with an office at Hamburg, a team of ~22 people.

 

[SveNitoR]

I tried looking at Owlcat's Twitter, Reddit and Steam to see any news. Nothing as far as I could see. Anyone have any news about them, or other Russian developers, and what's happening to them?

 

[Redglyph]

I tried looking at Owlcat's Twitter, Reddit and Steam to see any news. Nothing as far as I could see. Anyone have any news about them, or other Russian developers, and what's happening to them?

All are still present on Discord. Political discussions about the current situation is discouraged, so it's best not to ask.

Owlcat is an apolitical organization. The purpose of the studio is to make video games for people to have fun and enjoy playing. I understand that a lot of people think that just because the studio is Russian that this is the appropriate place for conversation about the current conflict.

It isn't.

Right now, as a moderation team we are very stressed, and very much do not want to have to deal with flame wars. We would appreciate it if you guys do not explore topics very likely to result in flame wars. Topics which, really don't have anything to do with the idea of making or playing or selling video games?

 

[fadedc]

Can respect that. If they are located in Russia, they are in a very difficult situation. Anything they post against the war could get them thrown in jail or worse. I don't think it's fair to ask someone in that type of situation to give an opinion.

 

[SveNitoR]

Can respect that. If they are located in Russia, they are in a very difficult situation. Anything they post against the war could get them thrown in jail or worse. I don't think it's fair to ask someone in that type of situation to give an opinion.

Yes, that's understandable. I'm more interested in how their situation is when it comes to being able to get payed, go to work and pay bills. It would be good to get inside information how the economical sanctions affect normal people there. I dislike the Russian government and Putin, but wish nothing bad on the Russian people.

 

[fadedc]

Yes, that's understandable. I'm more interested in how their situation is when it comes to being able to get payed, go to work and pay bills. It would be good to get inside information how the economical sanctions affect normal people there. I dislike the Russian government and Putin, but wish nothing bad on the Russian people.

They may have to be cautious even talking about that. The official Russian line is that everything is fine and that the sanctions will only make them stronger. Publicly contradicting that line is probably not safe.

 

[Couchpotato]

Seems were back to the early 80's and 90's for Russian gamer's again.

Russia Reportedly Legalises Piracy of Games, Movies, and More

Link - https://www.ign.com/articles/russia-reportedly-legalises-piracy-of-games-movies-and-more

 

[largh]

Seems were back to the early 80's and 90's for Russian gamer's again.

Just what I predicted somewhere in this thread. Didn't expect it to happen this quick though. The ban of computer parts would probably not work since they come from China.

I wonder how the Russian plans of detaching from the internet would influence torrent availability. Would they have some open channel for those? How would they control the flow? One could also send news and other stuff through torrents.

I fear that we are just seeing the beginning of a long spiral to hell. Somebody should replace Putin ASAP. That is the only reasonable way out.

 

[Stingray]

The ban of computer parts would probably not work since they come from China.

Not really. Some computer components (or components of components) are often manufactured in China but the products themselves don't "come" from a Chinese company, and the company who's having them manufactured would have full control over where they're allowed to be sold. For CPUs and GPUs, that'd be American companies (and Taiwanese for some video cards); for motherboards, largely Taiwanese companies; for SSDs and RAM, mostly American and South Korean companies; for monitors, mostly American, South Korean, and Taiwanese companies. Perhaps there are Chinese companies that sell ripoffs of some of these items, stuff we wouldn't normally see in the rest of the world.

There is one of the major name brand PC makers in China, Lenovo, so I suppose if all the above countries decide to stop selling computer parts in Russia, Russians could still count on being able to buy assembled PCs from Lenovo? It seems unlikely that the American/Taiwanese/SK companies would block the sale of parts to Lenovo.

 

[Eye]

I agree with Stingray.
The Chinese tread very careful. They'd hate to get sanctions from US and Europeans, their own economy would suffer too much.
Their trade with Europe btw is far more important, more significant than the small trade to Russia. Lenovo too is not unknown in Europe.

 

[Stingray]

The Chinese tread very careful. They'd hate to get sanctions from US and Europeans, their own economy would suffer too much.

Plus when it comes to the highest-tech manufacturing (fabbing CPUs, GPU chips, RAM and NAND chips for DIMMs and SSDs), that doesn't happen in China. It's Taiwan, South Korea, and the USA today. China itself would be very screwed if those other countries decided to cancel it. Granted, the rest of the world would be pretty screwed too if China took over Taiwan and disrupted things there - or tried to cancel everyone else. Eliminating dependence on Taiwan is a major issue that the west needs to work on. Either that or take responsibility for Taiwan's defense like we (America) do with South Korea.

 

[Eye]

Plus when it comes to the highest-tech manufacturing (fabbing CPUs, GPU chips, RAM and NAND chips for DIMMs and SSDs), that doesn't happen in China.

Yes, I was thinking about their dependency when writing the Chinese tread carefully.
But I did not make that clear in my reply.

It's Taiwan, South Korea, and the USA today.

Don't forget Europe, or at least the Dutch. NXP: market leader in chips for the automotive infustry. It's also making chips for 5G and wireless applications. The company is worth > 50 billion euros. ASML: making machines for the chip industries (to make chips), like Intel, Samsung and TSMC. Worth > 220 billion euros.

The minute the US decides to impose sanctions against China those companies will comply.

 

[Redglyph]

Plus when it comes to the highest-tech manufacturing (fabbing CPUs, GPU chips, RAM and NAND chips for DIMMs and SSDs), that doesn't happen in China. It's Taiwan, South Korea, and the USA today. China itself would be very screwed if those other countries decided to cancel it.

That's changing. China is about to build their own giga fab; in the mean time, they already have some good fabs, even suspected to handle 7nm nodes. Then some of TSMC's facilities are in China and as you said, Taiwan isn't far away.

China must have felt it when the US forced fabs like TSMC to stop delivering to big players like Huwaei, so unless they're insane they would have put some pressure to increase their independency in technology. And that will be a severe blow to us, because it's too costly to maintain a giga fab without the volume, and China is a big customer (I think Huawei alone was 20-25% of TSMC's production, not sure if that was only on selected nodes or total).

They'll still need raw material (metalloids) from Russia or somewhere else, I don't know if they can extract that locally. And tools, though they must have the capacity to assimilate and create that on their own.

So for now, us Western countries and China (and Russia…) still depend on one another, but the trend isn't in our favour.

 

[Stingray]

That's changing. China is about to build their own giga fab; in the mean time, they already have some good fabs, even suspected to handle 7nm nodes. Then some of TSMC's facilities are in China and as you said, Taiwan isn't far away.

TSMC has fabs in China but I'm fairly certain it's just for old processes, not anything remotely cutting-edge. The most advanced fabs in China are SMIC's I believe, or maybe Samsung's? But those still aren't competitive with what's in Taiwan/SK/USA. Intel also has fabs in Israel and Ireland that are probably more advanced than anything in China right now?

 

[Redglyph]

Yes, fortunately we still have the edge.

Anyway China is too involved in the international market in general to do anything foolish... unless they are sure they can get away with it.

 

[Redglyph]

Unforeseen consequences. STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl is now renamed STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl

(seen on Blue's News)

The Steam Listing for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has changed the spelling of its title. The upcoming shooter sequel is now listed as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. PC Gamer explains the change by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World reflects the Ukrainian spelling of Chornobyl, which was previously shown as Chernobyl. It seems safe to presume this is because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The title of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl remains unchanged at this point.

 

[Couchpotato]

Would have put this in the war thread but it fits the boycott thread more.

McDonald's, Starbucks, and others have no recourse for stolen trademarks in Russia

Link - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mc-d...course-for-stolen-ip-in-russia-174530523.html

I shared a post on the other thread about businesses will their assets being confiscated for leaving/boycotting Russia. Seems Russia acted on their threat later this week.

 

[Myrthos]

They might have calculated this in though. Besides that, with the size of Russia the number of outlets these companies have is somewhat limited, so it will not put that much of a dent in their profits and it generates a lot of goodwill in large parts of the world.
Apparently MacDonald's has some 850 restaurants in Russia, which compared to the close to 14.000 in the US is limited, given the population size of Russia. Smaller countries like the UK, France and Germany have each far more restaurants, but then again their GDP is also a lot higher than that of Russia.
I also doubt it will be so easy for those Russian companies to enter that market. They lack the benefits of scale and the investments of getting the supply chain operational might be quite expensive.

It is also very shortsighted of Russia. It isn't that big a punishment and when they drop trademark protection, those companies will not be coming back either unless that is reversed. Besides that, with closing this door, why would they bother with keep on paying their staff, which is what I understood they are doing now.

It would be a Wild West if everyone would do that, we would get to see new Pathfinder games from game developers like OwlCatt or OlCat

 

[Redglyph]

Would have put this in the war thread but it fits the boycott thread more.

McDonald's, Starbucks, and others have no recourse for stolen trademarks in Russia

Link - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mc-d...course-for-stolen-ip-in-russia-174530523.html

I shared a post on the other thread about businesses will their assets being confiscated for leaving/boycotting Russia. Seems Russia acted on their threat later this week.

That's strange of them to cling to a western brand! You'd think Russians would hate them for the EU/US connotation. After all, we're making their life miserable with all the sanctions, even if they agree less and less with Putin's decisions.