this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
56 points (100.0% liked)
Gaming
30579 readers
38 users here now
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This debate had been brought up back when Atomic Heart was bound to be released. Many people argued back then that it's fine buying the game since the dev team had completely relocated to Cyprus (very popular country for Russians to move to next to Kazakhstan and numerous European countries), thus not funding the Russian government through taxes.
However, given that the dev team still lives in Russia this time, there's not much to debate. The figures the author mentions check out and there's no other way to put it, really, that gamers are, in part at least, funding Russia.
Sure, the company might have opposing views to Russia, but firstly, they haven't moved to a different country, which is at least a little concerning, and secondly, are a legal entity in Russia, so they pay them regardless of motivation.
It's interesting to compare to the Israel-Palestine debate, too. By the same logic, one should avoid buying any games from US-based developers, because those taxes are going to fund the genocide in Gaza. But of course, when you follow the logic to that end, one starts to consider their own income taxes in that debate.
Just because there's no ethical consumption under capitalism doesn't mean that we have zero control over what we consume. It's perfectly fine to hold a viewpoint of trying to minimize harm where you can and when you're aware of it. Where you draw your lines doesn't have to be perfect either (after all, we're human).
Adding to that, sometimes those lines are things you know of and would like to not cross, but are impossible to avoid.