Thread by @cybersoroka

There is something everyone needs to understand. The issues being raised about #AtomicHeart aren't about the ethics of you, the gamer, buying the game. It's about the ethics of the publishers and their eagerness to embolden warcrime supporters to make an extra dollar. A 🧵⬇️

First of all: MultiPlatform has an amazing and thorough article documenting the chaotic development practices and close Russian connections enveloping AtomicHeart.
I'll summarize some of its points below to elaborate on. multiplatform.com/2023/01/18/wha…

The Mundfish CEO's name is not Robert Bagratuni as listed on the studio's webpage. It's Maxim Zatsepin, a former Creative Director in the Mail(.)ru group. A company with extremely close ties to the criminal Russian government.

In 2017 the original office of Mundfish opened in Moscow. Initially advertised as a Russian company, the founders kept all financial accounts outside of Russia. After Feb.24 the company drastically shifted its public image from a Russian studio to an international studio.

2 of the 4 major investors for AtomicHeart are Russian companies: Gaijin Entertainment and GEM Capital. So we have an untrustworthy CEO, leading a shady development company, using Russian funding to build this game.

MultiPlatform puts it well: "Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ... showed that the Kremlin regime uses taxes of Russians and Russian companies to build up military capabilities and bloody actions on the territory of other countries."

But it goes further with GEM Capital's direct ties to both Gazprombank and VTB, two banks that are actively financing the war in Ukraine. Gazprombank is being DIRECTLY used to pay the Russian soldiers who actively commit war crimes. rferl.org/a/ukraine-gazp…

The war crimes being documented in Ukraine are among the worst seen in modern times. And these are just the ones that were solidly confirmed after closed investigations.
There’s dozens of thousands of such investigation still open... war.ukraine.ua/russia-war-cri…

So we have a Russian company, parading itself in the West as international, promoting a game that's funded by money dripping with blood, and when Ukrainians and other gamers call this out as unacceptable, they get death threats and slurs thrown at them.

The pushback against #AtomicHeart is being met with a lot of misguided anger. Some gamers think that they’re being policed by “a woke mob” who just hates Russians over a “stupid proxy war”, and “my $60 won’t make a difference”.
Neither of this is true:

Fist of all, Ukrainians are not a mob after your political leanings, beliefs or morale. We want to live. We’re after venues that fund our mass murder that happens right now, as you read this.
Hundreds are being killed by Russians every day. Or families, friends. Our gamedev

https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1606673520129445889

Whole cities get leveled. Now, your $60 may not necessary go into MRLS or strike drones. But war is not just fancy tech. It’s surveillance copters, sleeping bags, socks, food, binding tape for torturing and fuel in excavators that dig mass graves. It’s all bought with money.

https://twitter.com/saintjavelin/status/1606066908629028865

The war in Ukraine isn't a "civil war", it's not a "territory dispute" and it isn't "a proxy war for influence." All of these are Russia’s dehumanizing propaganda that means to erase Ukraine’s agency and confuse foreigners into withholding solidarity. And ultimately - not caring.

The war in Ukraine is about the liberties and freedoms that a lot people in in the West unfortunately often take for granted. It’s a war of imperialistic expansion for Russia and it’s a war of defense against an oppressor state and terrorist regime for Ukraine.

It's very important to emphasize that this is not about Russians as ‘ethnicity’ or people. This is specifically about those who support the criminal Russian regime either explicitly or implicitly. These individuals are economically culpable for the war crimes currently committed.

So when we see Mundfish or #AtomicHeart, we see a company with a deceptive leader and past, producing a game drawing inspiration from Wagner PMC with money linked to a war of oppression.

https://twitter.com/jrondoo/status/1614677605399289861

A company whose representatives use vague, meaningless language to answer the questions about the genocidal war they’re financially tied to. They don’t feel like they have to take an outward stance because they know their game is going to make them money one way or another.

Mundfish has shown that they are untrustworthy, selfish, and are looking to deceive and abuse the advantages of the free world.

This is why @Microsoft (@Xbox), a company whose technology often shapes our present and the future, shouldn't promote #AtomicHeart. The same goes for @PlayStation and @Steam both to-go platforms for gaming. And everyone else who partakes in this promo:

https://twitter.com/sam0457_/status/1614005319377510402

These companies should care about protecting core human values, because they themselves became possible thanks to being established in free, democratic societies. It's a mistake to become a pipeline that funnels money that is used to erode these societies.

And right now is the time to make it clear to these companies that we care about their business practices. That associating and promoting those, whose money is directly involved in murder and terrorism does damage to their reputation.

#AtomicHeart doesn't need to be "boycotted" by players. Publishers promoting the game must be demanded to pull it from the shelves for risk of damaged reputation. Not only because of its revisionist propaganda but because it helps circulate money used to sponsor war crimes.

2 months ago the European Parliament declared Russia to be a state sponsor of terrorism. Gazprombank is its state bank, that’s been linked to paying those who commit terrorism.
Terrorism is a criminal offense, regardless of what you think about it.
tiny.cc/8hj3vz

It’s disturbing to see how many third party companies are willing to promote a game that’s so very unabashedly linked to terrorism. And how little exposure and concern it’s raising among gamers. Or how it’s misinterpreted as cultural qualms. Terrorism is not a cultural qualm.