Gaming News Russia: Developers encourage piracy of their game and don’t want money for it
In the past month, sanctions have been imposed on Russia in various areas. Sanctions that also affect video games and for which some developers have decided to act. Such is the case with Four Quarters, the team behind Loop Hero.
Summary
- “Support your friends and family during this difficult time”
- Piracy sponsored by the Russian government
“Support your friends and family during this difficult time”
Released by Devolver Digital on March 4th, 2021, Loop Hero came as a very good surprise. The game, released on PC and then Nintendo Switch, suffered the consequences of recent restrictions: after the military operations launched by Russia on Ukrainian soil, some digital stores no longer accept payments in Russian currency, such as Steam or Nintendo eShop. But that’s not a problem for Four Quarters, the studio behind the game.
They explain that they started this initiative after receiving many questions about Loop Hero, which was not for sale. Four Quarters then raises the flag of piracy and encourages players to download the game for free, even providing a special link. A decision that seems disinterested on its part, since some players wanted to make donations, which they refused:
We are very grateful for your support, but the truth is that we are fine. Support your friends and family during this difficult time.
As a reminder, Loop Hero is a small standalone nugget released last year. Set in an all-pixel art direction, the player is stuck in a time warp and must fight the lich to get out. For this purpose, he builds his own map with fields of different types (forest, church, mountains or campfire) to gather resources for the final battle.
Piracy sponsored by the Russian government
If we can applaud the Four Quarters initiative, it is a reminder of Russia’s recent decision on Western sanctions. In the first half of March, local media had relayed statements from the Russian government saying that “Companies in the country were no longer obliged to pay the patent holders of the countries that sanctioned Russia in connection with the use of intellectual property“A decision that should punish sanctioners but also encourage Russian manufacturers to make similar products.
On this topic, not only Nintendo and Steam decided to sanction Russia. Sony, Electronic Arts, CD Projekt or even Microsoft no longer sell their products in Russia, while Twitch decided to stop rewarding Russian users. For its part, Fortnite also made the decision to ban Russian players from participating in tournaments where the reward was money.
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