Monday, March 7th 2022
CD Projekt Halts All Digital & Physical Game Sales in Russia & Belarus
In light of the Russian military invasion in our neighboring country of Ukraine, until further notice the CD PROJEKT Group has made the decision to halt all sales of our games to Russia and Belarus. Today, we begin working with our partners to suspend digital sales and cease physical stock deliveries of CD PROJEKT Group products, as well as all games distributed on the GOG platform, to the territories of Russia and Belarus.
The entire CD PROJEKT Group stands firm with the people of Ukraine. While we are not a political entity capable of directly influencing state matters, and don't aspire to be one, we do believe that commercial entities, when united, have the power to inspire global change in the hearts and minds of ordinary people. We know that players in Russia and Belarus, individuals who have nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine, will be impacted by this decision, but with this action we wish to further galvanize the global community to speak about what is going on in the heart of Europe.
To our brothers and sisters fighting for their home country — stay strong!
Source:
CD Projekt
The entire CD PROJEKT Group stands firm with the people of Ukraine. While we are not a political entity capable of directly influencing state matters, and don't aspire to be one, we do believe that commercial entities, when united, have the power to inspire global change in the hearts and minds of ordinary people. We know that players in Russia and Belarus, individuals who have nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine, will be impacted by this decision, but with this action we wish to further galvanize the global community to speak about what is going on in the heart of Europe.
To our brothers and sisters fighting for their home country — stay strong!
74 Comments on CD Projekt Halts All Digital & Physical Game Sales in Russia & Belarus
When almost the whole world is cutting you off, you know you're in for a hard time. I hope this has the right effect. The people of Russia need to rope in their "fearless leader". And when I say rope in, not exactly excluding the idea of a noose..
Sometimes, isolation helps a leader consolidate power, as long as they can still provide basic sustenance to the general population.
Not saying it will happen in Russia, surely I hope that's not the case, but sanction works in mysterious way, and a nation push to the corner can potentially be quite dangerous.
We've been seeing sanctions after sanctions since the last century here. And the grip of the previous regime has - unsurprisingly - reached its peak with the last bout of western policies aiming to isolate them.
What led to their demise was idiotic management of economy and the usual cronyism that accompanies dictatorships. Ironically, said demise happened *after* sanctions mostly lifted and talks to end the isolation for all were ongoing (albeit poorly).
EDIT:
Oh and BTW, TPU waited a bit before posting this particular article(no diss on TPU, it's just how it rolls sometimes), CDPR was one of the first companies to stop service and sales to Russia and Belarus.
You only do military invasions when other party is much weaker and cost-benefit analysis checks out.
Putin either didn't bother with latter, or screwed it up, quite badly evidently. He's gonna pay for it, and not that I pity him. I do pity Russians with anti-war sentiments who now pay the price though.
1. Remove Putin, who has long out-stayed his welcome
or
2. Suffer the results of Putin's foolishness.
Where were all these companies you named when the USA violated the sovereignty of Serbia , Irak ( with completely made up documents at that being ) , Afghanistan , Uganda and Lybia just to name a few ? Did not the US bombard entire cities to the ground , killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of civilians in the proccess ? In comparison civilian casualties in Ukraine may aswell be not existent ( even though every life matters ) ! So what gives , were the lifes of those people less important than Ukrainian lifes or did these American companies ( most of them ) were blind and deaf back in the days because the agressor was their master ?
Everyone knows the answer to the question so please at the very least have some respect for the collective intellect if not for yours . If there is anyone on this planet that is by far the least in position to give lessons about bullying other nations that is the USA and the West in general . The cold truth you don't want to hear is , these companies are doing nothing more than serving and spreading American propaganda !
Do you have a proof that's the case? Perhaps it was considered, then decided against it as it wouldn't generate enough pressure to be worthwhile in those past cases? Which, given specific geopolitical situations of countries you mention, sounds quite plausible to me.
Ultimately, any sanctions will hurt the world because of how interconnected and interdependent we are nowadays. For example, just by virtue of not buying Russian oil is enough to increase oil and thus, power prices up substantially. So everyone in the world will feel the effects and with the poor suffering the most.
Much better would be to put anti war messages on all products going to Russia.
But at this particular level, CDPR games and GOG platform not selling games free of DRM to a country that is piracy master gold level, is the equivalent to not selling sand to Morocco.
If this war has taught us anything it is that russia is arguably the weakest power in the region, and rather then feared should be treated like the utter joke they are. Any other baltic country with their heads screwed on straight would be able to fend off russia. Hell russia STILL hasnt taken kiev, a city less then an hour away from a friendly border, with an army that vastly outnumbers the Ukranians. Yet poorly trained civillians and volunteers with MANPADs from the 80s have destroyed hundreds of russian tanks and APCs, and obliterated, what, 5 supply convoys now?
It's more likely that instead of fear of invasion, the polish have a deep seated hatred for the russians. The Balkan regions of europe hate each other but especially despise russia.
Honourable mentions: Cuba's communist party, Iran's murshids...