Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, and Netflix suspend services in Russia

midian182

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What just happened? More tech and gaming companies have joined the ever-growing list of firms pulling their services from Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. Activision Blizzard and Epic Games are pausing game sales and microtransactions in the country, while Netflix is suspending its streaming service.

Activision Blizzard president Daniel Alegre announced the decision in a letter to employees that was shared publicly. “Today, we are announcing that Activision Blizzard will be suspending new sales of and in our games in Russia while this conflict continues,” he wrote. The suspension will presumably apply to both physical and digital games.

Alegre also highlighted the contribution Activision Blizzard is making toward supporting the Ukrainian people. The company has raised over $300,000 by matching employee donations 2:1 and will increase the matching limit from $1,000 to $10,000.

Soon after Activision Blizzard made its plans public, Epic Games announced it was following suit, though it is not implementing a block on all of its services in Russia. “Epic is stopping commerce with Russia in our games in response to its invasion of Ukraine. We’re not blocking access for the same reason other communication tools remain online: the free world should keep all lines of dialogue open,” it tweeted.

Netflix became the next company to take action against Russia by suspending its service. This came as little surprise, given that a week earlier, it refused to carry the 20 free state channels required under the Russian Vitrina TV law, which applies to audiovisual services with more than 100,000 subscribers.

CNBC writes that Netflix has just under 1 million subscribers in Russia, a fraction of the 222 million people who subscribe to the streamer worldwide.

The response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been extensive. In addition to the sanctions, we’ve seen credit card giants, Amazon, EA Sports, Apple, Intel, AMD, and many more pull or limit their various services and products. However, major cryptocurrency exchanges refuse to do the same—beyond what is required by law.

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I am a westerner living in Moscow. It's been surprising to me to realize that most western things spreading in this world are completely unnecessary. FB, Instagram, Netflix, video games, etc. We need nothing of that really.
 
Meh I don’t see anything wrong with video games and entertainment companies selling products and services in Russia. It would only further weaken their economy as it’s expendable income and provides 0 utility/productivity. It would only help Russia if they paid Russian employees.
 
I wonder how fascist Russia will be able to live in it's own bubble of its own culture. For many years richest Russians were running away from it and living in western world. And now? Back to their own created reality?
 
I am a westerner living in Moscow. It's been surprising to me to realize that most western things spreading in this world are completely unnecessary. FB, Instagram, Netflix, video games, etc. We need nothing of that really.

Depriving any culture of FB, Twitter, gaming, etc can only make their people (esp the youth) stronger in the long-run. This measure will undoubtedly have the unintended “opposite” effect by cultivating a society of super-human intellects who are actually civil toward each other.
 
Depriving any culture of FB, Twitter, gaming, etc can only make their people (esp the youth) stronger in the long-run. This measure will undoubtedly have the unintended “opposite” effect by cultivating a society of super-human intellects who are actually civil toward each other.

Yes, stronger.... Wait. How switching from Facebook to Russia government controlled vk.com will make them stronger? :)
 
I must reiterate: After Russia being barred from SWIFT and the recent announcement than even all Visa and Mastercard were frozen in place, how exactly do these western companies could continue to do business there even if they wanted to?

I really don't like opportunistic PR postering from the Western side of the corporate oligarchy to give themselves a gold star for doing the right thing: more people should realize all these announcements are redundant after the sanctions were introduced.

 
Will I finally be able to play CS:GO without Ruskies?

Seriously, they should suspend their services everywhere in the world permanently. This is not going to have a negative impact on anyone, it's just virtue signalling by these terrible companies.
 
I am a westerner living in Moscow. It's been surprising to me to realize that most western things spreading in this world are completely unnecessary. FB, Instagram, Netflix, video games, etc. We need nothing of that really.


That's an excellent observation actually.

Firstly: Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, video games - all serve no other reason than to keep people sedentary and make their brains mush. China was first to actively ban/block most of them - no sanctions needed. After all, their 18 year olds need to be prepared to fight - not a bunch of obeselings like American "students" are.
 
That's an excellent observation actually.

Firstly: Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, video games - all serve no other reason than to keep people sedentary and make their brains mush. China was first to actively ban/block most of them - no sanctions needed. After all, their 18 year olds need to be prepared to fight - not a bunch of obeselings like American "students" are.
Even without MS life continues as normal. Nobody needs Windows really because we have Linux. Most western companies have convinced people into believing that they're indispensable, but they're not. Ah, BTW, now piracy is totally legal in Russia as a lot of software companies just fled.
 
From the standpoint of a WoW Classic player, that's great news though I am sure the Russian in game Maf will find a way to dodge these restrictions.

Though ofc I like Russian ppl, Russians in game were cancer as they operated like a criminal organization, ran organized mafias and bots to monopolize certain resources and sell them for EUR or USD, sold gold for real money illegally, ran bot farms, win-trade premades for real money, GDKP raids, GDKP PvP ranking and in generalo they bend the TOS in every way they could in order to make money.

WoW w/o Russians will be a better place for the rest of us.
 
That's an excellent observation actually.

Firstly: Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, video games - all serve no other reason than to keep people sedentary and make their brains mush. China was first to actively ban/block most of them - no sanctions needed. After all, their 18 year olds need to be prepared to fight - not a bunch of obeselings like American "students" are.
You should visit North Korea. It's everything you'd ever hope for.
 
I am not a political expert, but it seems like these companies are just trying to make a statement that they don't approve of death and destruction as a means to control people that you can't otherwise control. The value of these products is not really the point.
 
Maybe if I hadn't just seen the same tactics used in Canada to shut down a protest that didn't agree with the official narrative, I might think these companies banning Russian transactions were doing a noble thing. However, I am beginning to realize that its Russia today, tomorrow its whatever other narrative they don't agree with. What I'm seeing is that the modern West and all its freedoms of thought and opinion are now beholden to whatever the mega-corporations deeply held beliefs are today (that will of course change tomorrow). This is just the extension of Youtube/Facebook etc banning people for speaking their mind on COVID-19, but now its financial and retail institutions joining in on the cancel game.

I don't support Russia, but if you all don't see your freedoms being whittled away crisis after crisis then its going to be too late. If its not already. There does not seem to be any reservation from these mega-corps using their power to influence society and bend it to their will and the government is right there cheering them on. Who is going to advocate for you when it is your opinion that is unpopular? I think Klaus Shwab is loving this Russian invasion by the way, its another step toward his "own nothing" / Great Reset society.
 
I am not a political expert, but it seems like these companies are just trying to make a statement that they don't approve of death and destruction as a means to control people that you can't otherwise control. The value of these products is not really the point.
If they were not so willing to shut down any disagreeing opinion, then maybe I would agree with that. But, why does it always follow so close to the narrative? Why did financial institutions agree to stop payments to truckers in Canada? Why does youtube and facebook ban "misinformation" on Covid-19. I'm deeply opposed to what Russia is doing, but these organization are all to willing and quick to the draw on their banning of people they don't agree with. This train has left the station and right now its completely acceptable for financial institutions to ban groups, countries, and even individuals for opinions they don't agree with. That's a very dangerous thing. It might sound good when its Russia, but we already have seen they are willing to do this to anyone that doesn't agree with the mainstream narrative.
 
As someone who was one sucked into the World of Warcraft raiding scene, I offer that a better approach for Blizzard would have been to change one of the current raid bosses so you need special gear that you can only get after earning a new in-game achievement "I stopped the war in Ukraine."

I don't know how it would happen, but I guarantee raid teams would start working on it.
 
If they were not so willing to shut down any disagreeing opinion, then maybe I would agree with that. But, why does it always follow so close to the narrative? Why did financial institutions agree to stop payments to truckers in Canada? Why does youtube and facebook ban "misinformation" on Covid-19. I'm deeply opposed to what Russia is doing, but these organization are all to willing and quick to the draw on their banning of people they don't agree with. This train has left the station and right now its completely acceptable for financial institutions to ban groups, countries, and even individuals for opinions they don't agree with. That's a very dangerous thing. It might sound good when its Russia, but we already have seen they are willing to do this to anyone that doesn't agree with the mainstream narrative.
They didn't ban USA for illegally invading Irak in 2003, BTW. Oh yes, USA is the free world while Russia is a horrible enemy of freedom. That's why I can't take sides when it comes to all these things that Superpowers do. All of them suck.
 
If they were not so willing to shut down any disagreeing opinion, then maybe I would agree with that. But, why does it always follow so close to the narrative? Why did financial institutions agree to stop payments to truckers in Canada? Why does youtube and facebook ban "misinformation" on Covid-19. I'm deeply opposed to what Russia is doing, but these organization are all to willing and quick to the draw on their banning of people they don't agree with. This train has left the station and right now its completely acceptable for financial institutions to ban groups, countries, and even individuals for opinions they don't agree with. That's a very dangerous thing. It might sound good when its Russia, but we already have seen they are willing to do this to anyone that doesn't agree with the mainstream narrative.

I am not a political expert nor was I trying to defend or question their actions, but I think there is a big difference between "opinions you disagree with" and "special operations" like the one in Ukraine. Opinions don't kill people and destroy cities. Also these companies don't have to do business in Russia if they don't want to, just like Russia doesn't have to let them do business there.
 
I am not a political expert nor was I trying to defend or question their actions, but I think there is a big difference between "opinions you disagree with" and "special operations" like the one in Ukraine. Opinions don't kill people and destroy cities. Also these companies don't have to do business in Russia if they don't want to, just like Russia doesn't have to let them do business there.
The point is that the same people are deploying the same tactics. Look at my post again, in both of them I acknowledge that what they are doing might be perceived as noble, and even I might think so if these were extreme measure that they take only in the most extreme circumstances, but Canada just did this same kind of thing to their own people. What the new media fails to tell you is that this invasion is not completely unprovoked. Don't take this as siding with Russia because I don't. I think what Putin is doing is wrong, but missile installation close to Moscow, the fighting in East Ukraine between Russian sympathizers and Ukrainians. There is more to this than the Western media is telling people because they are all about the narrative. The same people calling salt of the earth truckers Nazis and white supremacist are giving you the news on Russia too. Call me skeptical, but I don't trust them to be balanced and fair in anything. Nor do I trust Russia which has a state-run media as well. We are living in extremely dangerous times and all we get is pre-processed narrative because you and I can't be trusted with the truth... That's reserved for the elites.
 
Meh I don’t see anything wrong with video games and entertainment companies selling products and services in Russia. It would only further weaken their economy as it’s expendable income and provides 0 utility/productivity. It would only help Russia if they paid Russian employees.
It's about sending a message.
 
The point is that the same people are deploying the same tactics. Look at my post again, in both of them I acknowledge that what they are doing might be perceived as noble, and even I might think so if these were extreme measure that they take only in the most extreme circumstances, but Canada just did this same kind of thing to their own people. What the new media fails to tell you is that this invasion is not completely unprovoked. Don't take this as siding with Russia because I don't. I think what Putin is doing is wrong, but missile installation close to Moscow, the fighting in East Ukraine between Russian sympathizers and Ukrainians. There is more to this than the Western media is telling people because they are all about the narrative. The same people calling salt of the earth truckers Nazis and white supremacist are giving you the news on Russia too. Call me skeptical, but I don't trust them to be balanced and fair in anything. Nor do I trust Russia which has a state-run media as well. We are living in extremely dangerous times and all we get is pre-processed narrative because you and I can't be trusted with the truth... That's reserved for the elites.
And this is only a problem for Putin, not Rusia as a whole. If free countries can't join NATO because Putin said so then he has already won.

The only reason Putin can't get close to the west is because he would have to expose his hypocrisy and corruption to his own people, he would be unable to keep russians poor and "in their place". Dictators fear the people the most and the closer russia gets to the west the less power he has over them.

Ukraine did nothing wrong to ask for a membership in NATO and the EU. This is not an excuse for the atrocities happening now.
 
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