The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the exodus of Western companies from the country is having a profound effect on the video game market, a new study has found. Seven in ten gamers said they had hacked at least one game in 2022, with 51% admitting they hacked more in the past year than before. By one estimate, Western publishers could see lost profits as high as $300 million.
Many events have contributed to the rise and fall of online piracy rates over the past 20 years, but few, if any, can match the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The partial or total withdrawal of Western companies in all entertainment sectors has profoundly affected the availability of content. Content libraries from before 2022 are still accessible in some cases, but new movie, music, and video game releases are mostly a thing of the past, at least as things stand today.
The chaos in the movie market has been well documented over the last 17 months and now there are signs that the video game market is unlikely to escape a similar fate.
Seven out of ten players are now pirates
According to a survey conducted by the online game development platform XYZ Schoolthe exit of major international video game publishers from the Russian market led to a sharp increase in the number of gamers playing pirated games.
Nearly seven in ten gamers (69%) said they had played at least one pirated copy in 2022, and more than half (51%) said they are pirated more now than in 2021.
As first reported by Russian media outlet Vedomosti (paywall)the study was conducted in all regions of Russia and took into account all unlicensed game formats, in most cases downloaded from torrent sites.
While more than a quarter of those surveyed (27%) said they had hacked three PC games by 2022 and 20% confessed to hacking more than 10, other numbers in the study are more positive. Of the 31% of players who reported not hacking anything in 2022, all said they were opposed to hacking. Only 7% of gamers admitted to not buying any games in 2022, which means that 93% bought at least one piece of legitimate content.
Availability and convenience
It has long been argued that if content is not available through legal channels, people will find a way to pirate it. Similarly, if content is available but customers are subject to an inconvenient process to access it, that can contribute to higher piracy rates.
According to Alexander Kuzmenko, former editor of the Russian video game magazine and gaming website. Igromania (Game Mania), it's not just the departure of publishers, including Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, that's causing problems for gamers.
When platforms like Steam and GOG, known for their ease of access, stopped supporting Russian bank cards, barriers appeared in a previously frictionless system. Yegor Tomsky, CEO of watt studyagrees that buying content has become much more difficult.
โGamers are used to buying games on Steam with a single click, and now to buy a game you have to perform the same actions as when you download a pirated version, so everyone chooses to save money,โ says Tomsky.
Multiple factors could further increase hacking rates
With the Russian economy facing enormous difficulties directly related to the invasion of Ukraine, some fear that game piracy rates are approaching 90% or higher, last seen some two decades ago.
People everywhere are trying to save money, and according to Konstantin Sakhnov, co-founder of Vengeance Games, overseas game publishers may see lost profits as high as $200-$300 million. TO report de Kommersant released today indicates that local businesses are also feeling the pain.
According to data published by the job search platform HH.ru, during the first half of 2023 the number of vacancies for video game developers in Russia plummeted by 38%.
during a recent Russia: a land of opportunity meeting, President Putin dismissed ideas that video games are mere toys; even as part of a multi-billion dollar business, they have an important role to play, one that transcends money.
โThe video game should help the person to develop, help to find themselves. It should help educate a person within the framework of universal human values โโand within the framework of patriotism, and in general from a humanitarian point of view.โ
