Russian president Vladimir Putin at the 2011 opening of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, in which Gazprom is a major partner.
VKPlay is run by VKontakte, a social media company often referred to as 'Russia's Facebook' over which Gazprom has effective control via investments made by subsidiaries and affiliate companies. Gazprom is Russia's state-run energy giant which generates scads of cash for the government, has been instrumental in the ongoing economic warfare between Russia and the west, and which was reported to be creating its own private military company as recently as last week.Ītomic Heart is also being distributed via VKPlay in Russia-after sanctions led Steam to effectively end business there-and a few other countries. Here's what's definitely true: GEM Capital founder Anatoliy Paliy worked as first deputy general director for a Gazprom subsidiary-Gazprom Gazenergoset-in the past, before going into business for himself alongside other Gazprom management types in the 2010s. But the other two quickly became more controversial in the wake of the invasion, with audiences placing both companies under the microscope to figure out where they stood in relation to the war, and whether they might be financially supporting the Russian state. Tencent is, well, Tencent, the Chinese tech behemoth that owns whole segments of the gaming industry, from a piece of Epic Games, Discord, and Ubisoft to Riot Games in its entirety. In early 2021, over a year before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Mundfish announced that it had secured funding from three key investors: Tencent, GEM Capital, and Gaijin Entertainment (the maker of War Thunder). (Image credit: Mundfish) Following the money: Mundfish's investors
ATOMIC HEART GAME WIKI UPDATE
I've reached out to the studio to ask about its statement on the war, and I'll update this section if I hear back. It could be that Mundfish's tweet was an ungraceful attempt to thread a political needle without jeopardising itself, its staff, or those associated with either. Marking oneself as anti-war in that kind of environment is an act of profound courage and incredible risk. The Russian political scientist and anti-war activist Greg Yudin described this system as one that generates "incredible contempt and disdain for all kinds of politics" among Russians, who are "completely certain that there is no possible way to change anything through politics, that no change is possible in general".
The Russian state has taken a hard line against any and all internal protest against its so-called " special military operation" in Ukraine, arresting thousands of protestors, threatening years in prison camps over anti-war social media posts, and charging a political opposition figure with treason for "spreading disinformation" about the Russian army.Įven when Russia isn't at war, the country maintains a deeply alienating political system that has entrenched power among a cabal of lackeys and oligarchs for decades. On the other hand, whether it's headquartered in Cyprus or not, Mundfish is a studio with Russian roots and Russian staff (with Russian family and Russian friends), as a 2019 article documenting a tour of its Moscow office will attest. A video from a Ukrainian YouTuber titled " Please, Don't Buy Atomic Heart"-which has managed to accrue nearly 2 million views in just over a week-highlighted the absurdity of a game based around an alt-history USSR claiming it doesn't "comment on politics," calling it "absolute nonsense" and "one step away from the types of gamers who say 'I don't like politics in my videogames' and then immediately open up Fallout".
Mundfish's statements that it was only interested in "getting Atomic Heart into the hands of gamers everywhere," or that it was " For players who just want to play," struck some people as, at best, a marketing attempt to redirect the conversation surrounding its game or, at worst, some kind of tacit support for the actions of its original home country. "We're for all the good things and against all the bad ones" Sergey Mohov mocks Mundfish's statement Mundfish's reticence to even name the war in question sparked outrage, summed up by tweets from game designer Sergey Mohov, who mocked Mundfish's position as "We're for all the good things and against all the bad ones," lambasting the studio for "having the unbelievable privilege to have this kind of position". It was not the statement of support for Ukrainian independence that some were hoping for.
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