Ukrainian studio defiant against criticism of its offer to 'personalize' artillery that will be fired at Russians

pcgamer.com:

Ukrainian development studio Frogwares is wrapping up its Kickstarter for Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened(opens in new tab) with an unusual and controversial promotion: A raffle to have a personalized message written on an artillery shell that will be fired at invading Russian forces in Ukraine.

The Kickstarter campaign(opens in new tab), which ends on September 3, is already a runaway success, having raised nearly €230,000 on a €70,000 goal. To help give it a final push, fans of the studio currently serving with the 24th Separate Assault Battalion of the Ukrainian Ground Forces reached out with the idea of giving three fans a shot at having a message of their choice written on a 152mm howitzer shell, just for liking and sharing a link to the campaign on Twitter.

Message can be anything you want, but subject to our team's approval.Winners will each get a photo of their message on a shell, proudly presented by our troops. pic.twitter.com/b7vAYEui4NSeptember 1, 2022

The tradition of putting messages on munitions goes way back. Task and Purpose(opens in new tab) notes that it's been common practice in the US military since the WWII, but you can go even farther back than that, all the way to the days of ancient Greeks and Romans(opens in new tab). Despite that, several responses on Twitter to Frogwares' message are critical of the offering, accusing the studio of glorifying violence and gamifying real war. 

«Talk about being tone deaf,» Twitter user MrInspirer(opens in new tab) wrote. «That shell has a non zero chance to land next to a civilian, that's an unfortunate nature of artillery. So go a head folks, donate your money to write some cringe text on something that will kill some kid.»

Another Twitter user,