Blyat
This article misses the point. The logic behind the likely regulation is that: a couple of GSC devs joined UAF (one KIA) and GSC donated to ukrainian funds -> you spend money on their products -> you have financially supported UAF. GSC wasn’t proclaimed a terrorist org (lmao) but laws here can be applied backwards if they’d need so.
You’re overthinking it. There is no logic in russian law. The Tsar says something and that’s the law.
Tzar doesn’t need anything to land one’s ass in jail, but it’d still be followed by traditional beaurocratic procedures just like in RE\USSR and that’s the likely way it’d follow through.
And, also, having Stalker on your acc or purchasing it via russian resellers may serve as a trigger that can make agencies or just your russian teammate tell on you for lulz if your profile wasn’t set to private.
The absence of self-awareness there is astounding
Oh they’re aware. It’s always projection
please buy the full game without waiting for a discount. thank you from a humble game developer from Kyiv, Ukraine.
After KSP2 I promised myself I would never do Early Access or preorder again. However, I made an exception for this. Love the stalker series and I’ve both preordered it and took the entire week off of work. You can say I’m definitely hyped lol
I keep waiting for the ultimate edition to become available for purchase. Wouldn’t miss out on Stalker for anything. Russia can go fuck itself. I am sorry trump won here in the us and we may not be helping as a country anymore. I contributed in a few ways over the years but I wish I could do more than I have. Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦
Will do. I’m basically one decent trailer away from impulse buying it anyway. As a fellow game developer, allow me to say: I truly wish things will get better for you guys.
<3
Already pre-ordered the Ultimate edition. Goes against my usual principles but I don’t care in this instance. I hope the game is a massive, GotY contending success.
Where’d you preorder? I kept waiting for it to be available.
https://www.stalker2.com/preorder
The physical copy comes with some goodies, or else you can pre-order through GoG, Steam, Epic Games, MS Store, or Xbox.
Well, That’s where I’ve been checking. So at least I’m not messing that up.I just keep getting a pic of a suprised dude holding a bitten piece of fried chicken leg. I just popped into the discord and they’re only mentioning the digital versions so far so maybe physical isn’t opened yet?
Nvm, missed the window. Looks like there are still places to get it though.
I did the same, and also normally never preorder digital goods. Preordered the ultimate edition in December 2022, and really did not care whether they could deliver at all.
Now, as a fan of the old games, I am pretty stoked that it looks like I really will be getting an awesome game.
Thank you <3
Are you working on the STALKER 2 team?
No, I work at Wargaming Ukraine. But at least a dozen of my friends and ex-colleagues are working at GSC and the whole Ukrainian game development community respects what GSC does!
It’s inspirational what they’ve done. I really hope the launch goes well.
I’m considering it. I’d probably want to know if it works well with Linux first.
I will do a day one purchase despite being too busy with factorio expansion to actually start it just yet.
Thank you <3
This must be quite a big decision really, considering there are a lot of Russian players into the Stalker Universe.
But good on them, fuck em!
Maybe they should consider not supporting ongoing invasion of the country that universe originated from, if they are so into it
I believe many quite a few people are against it, but afraid of speaking up - knowing they’ll be dragged into a back alley of they do.
And yet, I see just as many people openly flaunt russian language, flag and other symbols of that “country” online. What I’m saying is if you happen to live in russia but don’t support the russian state, better not reveal where you’re from at all
I’m going to have to buy a new irony meter.
“This year, Russia also took control of Chornobyl,…”
This year again? I thought they dug their trenches in radioactive soil in the first year of the invasion.
Russian pigs
That’s rich.
The question is whether they have the intention of publishing it in Russia in the first place.
Russian users can still use workarounds to purchase from the steam store. I believe this is a big business for some enterprising users in other countries.
Where there is prohibition there is business. Always has been.
It will most definitely be banned (they even shut down one of the few Ukrainian language libraries in russia before the full scale invasion) and likely it won’t be available in russian anyway.
Good. Hopefully russia also bans all the games portraying LGBT characters and ethnic minorities, so I can fucking play Overwatch without running into these assholes every other match
I am surprised it’s not already banned. They were going to ban Duolingo because of presence of animated LGBT characters. Duolingo caved and made a custom “LGBT free” version for the russian market.
oof. If Blizzard does that, they’d have to cut like at least 1/3 of the characters lmao
It’s maybe my fault.
I immediately abandoned BF2042 after the second invasion of Ukraine because it was full of Russians and ‘expat’ or not I ain’t cosplaying as those assholes.
I can’t even watch russian movies or listen to russian music (even artists that have openly opposed the full scale invasion). It just gets me in a bad mood.
Any time I see a russian flag on the internet, it’s like seeing a nazi flag. I start thinking “Why the fuck is this here?”.
Right there with ya.
That bad blood would take ages to clean.
It’s not going to clear, because the russians won’t change.
Not because there is something inherently malicious about them/their culture. That’s bullshit.
It’s the choices they make. And they will continue to make the choice to support genocidal imperialism because they have zero incentive to change.
Western coddling about “they are just afraid, what can they do?” is a massive disservice to the russians (not to mention the countries on the recieving end of their genocidal imperialism).
May I ask you to elaborate on your last paragraph. About the disservice. What do you mean?
ed: deleted a pointless preambula
Engaging with russian victim-hood polemics is not going to help bring about any positive change in russian society.
Pretending that russian society does not consist of a strong majority of genocidal imperialists. Coming up with fantasies about how “everyone is just afraid” so they are just pretending to support imperialism. Turns out you can estimate preference falsification and it is relatively minor at ~10% with the impact being a change in support from ~75% to 65% (still a strong majority) for the full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Not putting Navalniy on the pedestal. He was a committed racist and imperialist. He was also a fool who decided to go back to russia, got himself put in jail and got himself killed. If the russians can’t find a better leader, then that’s on them.
Inviting Navalniy’s wife to high end forums where she comes up with stuff like:
What is the European Union’s strategy for Russia?
What is your (the russian opposition’s) strategy for russia? Everything you’ve done so far has been a massive failure. Your organization is in exile and your husband foolishly decided to go back to russian prison where he was killed. What are russians going to do next?
Finally, there are those who advocate for the urgent “decolonization” of Russia, arguing to split our vast country into several smaller, safer states. However, these “decolonizers” can’t explain why people with shared backgrounds and culture should be artificially divided. Nor do they say how this process should even take place.
You killed 5% of the civilian population in Chechnya, including in brutal targeted attacks and you speak about artificially divided? If 7 million russian civilians (roughly 5% of the population) were killed, would you be taking such a cavalier attitude?
If the russians do want to change their society for the better, they need to first confront the issues above. They will never achieve anything if they keep playing dumb. There is no reason to choose a “putin lite” over the real deal.
Hugh, that’s more based than I thought it would be. I’d reply again when I have a break.
“Shared background and culture” more like forcefully homogenised by russian empire and then ussr. Jesus Christ there is no end to the gaslighting
