The government is discussing an initiative to “land” foreign online games in the Russian Federation

The government has begun a substantive discussion of the initiative to “land” foreign online games in the Russian Federation. In particular, the Unified Gambling Regulator (URAI) is preparing a bill that will oblige developers to open representative offices in the country and transfer server infrastructure here. They will also have to pay a fee – the funds will go to support Russian companies. But, according to Kommersant, relevant Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko still considers the ideas “raw.” And industry experts generally doubt that “landing” is possible under current conditions.

According to three Kommersant sources in the video game development market, on November 9, a closed meeting of officials and representatives of the gaming industry, organized by the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, was held at the coordination center of the Russian government. The parties discussed the prospects for implementing the initiative to transfer the servers of foreign companies developing online games to Russia, as well as to create a regulator for them. Judging by the agenda, the Ministry of Digital Development, Roskomnadzor, the Federal Tax Service, and the Ministry of Economy were invited to participate. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, the event was attended by representatives of gaming companies 1C, Lesta Games, VK Play, as well as the Video Game Industry Development Organization (RVI).

On October 19, at a meeting of the Sports Development Council, the head of the executive committee of the Boxing Federation, Umar Kremlev, proposed moving the servers of foreign companies developing online games to the Russian Federation. At the same time, he talked about creating a single regulator of online games so that, if necessary, they could be blocked. In addition, Mr. Kremlev advocated obliging companies to register their resources in the .ru zone, place their software and servers in the country, and open local offices. Vladimir Putin supported the idea.

According to one of Kommersant’s interlocutors, familiar with the details of the meeting, its participants discussed precisely the ideas of Umar Kremlev and the possibilities of their implementation. “The Unified Gambling Regulator is preparing a bill that would allow foreign game developers to land in Russia. Companies that will transfer the servers of their games to the country want to be required to pay contributions to a separate fund, the funds will supposedly be used to support the Russian video game infrastructure. But the bill itself was not shown to the meeting participants,” says Kommersant’s source. However, he claims that Mr. Chernyshenko “considered the ideas to be crude” and ordered them to be refined.

Another Kommersant interlocutor who took part in the meeting clarified that a working group will be organized under the Ministry of Digital Development, which will include representatives of Russian video game developers. They will have to formulate key definitions for the industry and “clearly spell out the differences between online casinos and games.”

The Ministry of Digital Development confirmed the fact of the meeting to Kommersant. “The main objective of the meeting is to exchange views between representatives of the gaming industry and regulators,” said a ministry representative. According to him, now there is a “search for approaches to possible regulation in this area.”

Roskomnadzor, Lesta Games and VK declined to comment, and the head of RVI, Vasily Ovchinnikov, did the same. The Ministry of Economy forwarded the request to Dmitry Chernyshenko’s office. Representatives of ERAI, the Federal Tax Service, the Deputy Prime Minister and Umar Kremlev did not respond to requests.

In practice, it will not be possible to “land” video game developers: now there are many studios of various sizes, and there are simply no tools that would allow monitoring the implementation of the initiative, says Kirill Lyakhmanov, chief legal adviser of the intellectual property practice of the EDB law firm.

Perhaps, the lawyer clarifies, the authors of the idea had distributors in mind, that is, platforms that allow you to buy digital copies of games – Steam, EGS, Nintendo eShop, PS Store, etc. But even in relation to them, coercion, for example, through the threat of blocking is unlikely, Mr. Lyakhmanov believes. “In two years, almost everyone has learned to use a VPN and find ways to pay for foreign content, so blocking most likely will not affect the availability of sites for Russians,” he says.

Nikita Korolev