World of Tanks introduces a blocking mode – Kommersant FM

World of Tanks may be blocked in Russia: the game falls under the law on information resources related to the financing of the enemy, said Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Duma Committee on Information Policy. Previously, the developer, the Wargaming company, offered gamers to buy in-game packages on Ukrainian themes. They promised to use the money received to purchase ambulances for Kyiv. Mr. Gorelkin said that domestic players need to be offered Russian projects so that they stop “sponsoring Western studios.”

Meanwhile, World of Tanks has no legal relation to the Russian “World of Tanks,” noted independent video game expert Alexander Kuzmenko: “The game, which was originally called World of Tanks, was produced in Belarus more than 15 years ago. This is no longer a foreign product. In addition, after the events began in February 2022, the company left the Russian market.

At the same time, since this project was one of the most popular in general on the domestic market, it changed its name, now it is “World of Tanks”. It is published and managed by a St. Petersburg company called Lesta.

So, it seems to me that it is irrational to say that we will sponsor and support someone, because World of Tanks is a Russian product.

And it definitely has no relation, at least legally, to its original prototype, which was called World of Tanks.”

The Russian Lesta Games noted that its projects “World of Tanks” and “World of Ships” are “outside politics” and have no relation to other games of similar themes. At the same time, the company advised users to be careful when making payments and purchases online, so as not to violate the laws of Russia and Belarus.

However, social networks drew attention to the Lesta Games license agreement, which allegedly stated that Wargaming is the copyright holder of the game. After that, the Russian company removed this line from the document.

However, theoretically, this does not mean that Lesta and Wargaming still had financial ties, explained lawyer, partner at Tomashevskaya & Partners Roman Yankovsky: “There are also free licensing agreements. We do not know the text of this user agreement. Moreover, it was not necessary to write about this at all, that is, this is a matter of agreement between two companies, and not the company and users.

Commercial organizations, when providing each other with some kind of intellectual property, usually pay for it. Otherwise, such gratuitous operations carry many risks.

As for the possibility of blocking the project, this is an administrative procedure, and a lot depends on the discretion of Roskomnadzor and the prosecutor’s office. It’s difficult to talk about legal possibility, because everything in the law is formulated as broadly as possible.”

“Kommersant FM” made sure that a package with yellow-blue camouflage for the tank is available for purchase on the website of the Cypriot Wargaming, which manages the game’s foreign servers. There is no such offer on the website of the Russian Lesta.

However, some users from Russia can continue to play on European servers. Previously, Wargaming admitted that in a year and a half they transferred $1 million to Kyiv for the purchase of medical equipment.

But it is unlikely that anything threatens Russian players; at least, we are not talking about direct sponsorship of Ukraine, emphasized the founder of the Moscow Human Rights Center, Mikhail Salkin: “The fact is that, after all, the law talks exclusively about blocking sites, who tell you how to make donations, that is, make some kind of financial transactions.

I’m afraid that the story of very indirect charity still doesn’t fit here. When a user pays money for some game product, he simply receives additional preferences in the game, a certain service. The question of how an organization manages its profits should not apply to it. Maybe this is just a marketing ploy – they announced it, but never did it.

Therefore, I believe that a citizen cannot be held responsible for this. Moreover, he will not be able to pay a foreign company with a Russian card; he only pays to a Russian legal entity with it; no other function is provided.”

Wargaming was founded in 1998 by Belarusian businessman Viktor Kisly. The company is now based in Cyprus. Its most popular game, World of Tanks, appeared in 2010. Now more than 160 million players around the world have accounts in it.

Last year Kommersant source close to Wargamingsaid that the company’s global revenue from World of Tanks reached $800 million, with Russia and Belarus accounting for about 50%.

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Daniil Babkin