As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, the gaming fraternity is now coming together to impose several sanctions on Russia. The game industry has been stepping up to help support the Ukrainian people. Ukraine’s vice PM recommending developers to take additional step of blocking “all Russian and Belarusian accounts.” The government top officials believe that this will encourage Russian civilians to ask the government to end the military aggression.
“I am sure that you will not only hear, but also do everything possible to protect Ukraine, Europe, and, finally, the entire democratic world from bloody authoritarian aggression,” vice PM Mykhailo Fedorov says in an open letter to “all game development companies and esports platforms.” In a tweet containing the letter, Fedorov directly tags Xbox and PlayStation as per PCGamesn.
As per 42matters, there are over 70 million active gamers in Russia as of March 2022 of which 40 million indulge in mobile gaming which means majority of the population play online games on one or the other platform. Therefore if gaming companies actually start working in blocking the access it will affect large portion of Russian citizens not just that the esports scene and businesses around gaming will also affect.