Game News Nintendo has taken a radical decision and bans the purchase of video games in this country
Being an international company requires adapting to various cultures, but also being aware of geopolitical situations. Depending on the situation, these companies may have to enter a market, leave it or even adapt their processes for a particular region. Nintendo recently faced the situation.
The consequences of the war on the Russian video game market
At the start of 2022, Russia triggered armed conflict in Ukraine. The international community, after failing to get Vladimir Putin to resign, quickly imposed sanctions on Russia. Whether political, military, sporting or financial, these sanctions aim to isolate the country from the rest of the world. Many companies left Russia, others stopped selling or distributing their products.
The video game was no exception to the rule. We think in particular of the studio Wargaming, which has definitely left its premises in Russia and Belarus or Electronic Arts, which stopped selling its games there. Nintendo is also among the publishers with offices in Russia, and the publisher soon announced the suspension of the activities of its subsidiary, and some games were no longer allowed to cross borders. According to estimates, the industry could lose up to 2.5 billion euros because of the conflict and their withdrawal.
Nintendo take new measures, Russian players (almost) stuck
In recent days, Nintendo decided to push the idea a little further by announcing the closure of the eShop for Russian users. Players can therefore redownload previously purchased titlesbut it is not no longer possible to use the online store to acquire new ones or use codes. Spotted by VGC, this decision was quickly confirmed by the Game Developer site, which was able to access a part documentation which was sent to some publishers.
Due to the economic outlook, Nintendo of Europe has decided to end the operations of its Russian subsidiary. As part of our efforts to honor previous commitments to our customers in the Russian market, the Russian version of the Nintendo eShop will be configured to offer limited service. Beginning May 31, 2023 and for the foreseeable future, Russian customers with an existing Nintendo Account will be able to re-download digital content they previously purchased. It will no longer be possible to make new purchases or redeem download codes in Nintendo eShop in Russia.
In these documents, Nintendo therefore puts forward the idea of ”economic prospects” which no longer allow the Japanese company to provide the service. We suspect that many players create foreign accounts to circumvent the problem, but a good part of the public will be blocked. For safety reasons, credit cards and Paypal identifiers have also been removed.
With this new measure, Nintendo is following the path traced by Wargaming and Electronic Arts, but also by Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Take-Two, Sony and Microsoft. For the time being, Nintendo does not seem to have planned to relaunch its activity on Russian territory. The answer to this indirect question is certainly in the evolution of the conflictthe duration of which is already approaching 18 months.
