Contents
The ruler also wants to make Russia more digitally independent in the gamer sector – but that won’t be easy.
It’s all about this: Russia’s government should examine whether the country can develop its own video game consoles and gaming platforms. The order comes from President Vladimir Putin himself. There are two main reasons for the instruction: On the one hand, Moscow has long been pursuing the idea of becoming digitally sovereign – i.e. shaping the digital space according to its own ideas. On the other hand, many Western companies have withdrawn from the country after Russia’s major attack on Ukraine. There is an increasing lack of game consoles from Sony & Co. in Russia.
Gaming is political: Many video games revolve around war and combat. Video games are correspondingly political in Russia in 2024. “The most popular game in Russia is called ‘World of Tanks’,” says Mareike Müller. The journalist is a correspondent for the German “Handelsblatt” in Moscow. Such and similar war and shooting games are played in international online spaces, often in teams. “There are ways to incorporate a certain narrative – depending on how you develop it,” says Müller.
Computer games have huge potential – economically, but also for incorporating certain political messages.
Influence opinion formation: In Russia, up to 80 percent of people who have Internet access also use it to play games, according to surveys. “This has huge potential – economically, but also to incorporate certain political messages,” says Müller. Putin is now expecting a plan from his Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin by June on how he wants to implement the order for his own Russian game consoles and games.
Important for Russia: “Russian national pride plays a very important role in all areas of Russian politics,” states journalist Müller. Russian foreign policy and its domestic political consequences – mobilization for war, consequences of sanctions – are legitimized by national pride. However. “For things like McDonalds, the Russian replacement is still fairly easy to do. This is likely to be more difficult with video games and game consoles.” This is not least because many programmers and IT specialists left Russia after the war began.
Difficult undertaking: Putin’s project is also likely to face some technical hurdles. Because Russia doesn’t have any domestic processors that are even remotely fast enough for modern games. There is also no modern semiconductor industry in Russia. Building one takes years, if not decades, requires an enormous amount of know-how and costs billions. That’s why the computer chips will have to be imported for years to come – currently mainly from China. But according to experts, not even China has the most modern technologies for games – this applies to graphics cards, for example.