As the games industry freezes out Russia, Russians double-down on piracy
Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine has resulted in an exodus of foreign industries from the country, as Western nations unite in applying sanctions on the Putin regime. The games industry is one of the more prominent, with almost every major player now having withdrawn from Russia and closed any regional offices there. What's an ordinary Russian to do when they can't get their gaming fix? Pirate it, comrade.
This is an area where accurate figures are close to impossible, but it's fair to say that Russia more generally has a reputation for software piracy, one established long before the current war in Ukraine. A new study by the Russian game development collective and college School XYZ suggests that it's getting worse as companies withdraw from the market, with seven out of ten respondents admitting they'd pirated at least one game in 2022 (thanks, torrentfreak). 51% said they'd pirated more games in the last year than in the year beforehand.
This is first of all one study, and self-selecting inasmuch as it was conducted online and the respondents will mostly have had an existing interest in games. It took place in June 2023 and the sample size is 1,500 people across all regions of Russia. A pirated game is broadly defined but, per XYZ School COO Emma Yusova, the majority are downloaded from torrent trackers.
Perhaps more importantly, it takes place following an unprecedented withdrawal of Western firms from Russia and, within a very short timeframe, most existing marketplaces no longer selling in the region. Some content libraries allow Russians to access content purchased before 2022, though not all, but Russian gamers now have few routes to buy new games legitimately. This is incidentally not limited to videogames:
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