The Russian invasion of Ukraine has now spilled over into an unusual

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has now spilled over into an unusual
new front: an ongoing pissing match between actual Russian military and
troll factories and a Ukrainian video-game studio that’s yielded not
just a potential ban on a popular video game, but a bounty on a Russian
warship as well.

The latest installment of the acclaimed “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” first-person
shooter series currently faces a ban in Russia due to developer GSC
Game World’s financial support of the Ukrainian military amid the
ongoing invasion, Meduza [1]reports. In response to this threat and the
related disinformation campaign against GSC, the game studio has
offered a literal bounty for the destruction of the Russian frigate
Admiral Grigorovich.

This year has really screwed with my wartime Bingo card: I didn’t have
“[2]North Korea joins the war,” let alone GSC joining it.

So how'd we get here? Let me try to explain.
The 'S.T.A.L.K.E.R.' game art was on point. (Courtesy photo)

First, tensions were already brewing since the first game in the
series, "Shadow of Chernobyl," was released in 2007. Set in an
alternate version of modern Ukraine, the country suffers a second
Chernobyl disaster that triggers anomalies too numerous and weird to
get into here. Imagine an entire season of "The Twilight Zone" or
“Black Mirror” set in an irradiated hellscape. The protagonist of the
game is an amnesiac Ukrainian stalker in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
-- and a major antagonist is a Russian stalker.
Still better than what you actually get from wandering an exclusion
zone. (It’s cancer. You really just get cancer.) (Courtesy photo)

Now, pop culture that's critical of former Soviet or modern Russian
leadership is often poorly received by the Kremlin, but it's not like
they lose it over every game or movie that critiques Russia, which is
why the initial installment -- which sold more than 2 million copies --
didn’t prompt a major response from Moscow.

But when the long-delayed sequel finally received a 2022 release date a
decade after its initial promised release, things went to shit: Russia
invaded Ukraine in February of that year and almost took over GSC
during its march on Kyiv. GSC fled the country, with the studio’s CEOs,
brothers Serhiy and Evgeniy Hryhorovych, taking the company to Prague
and resumed operations.

In November, the brothers struck back, with Serhiy [3]offering his
personal Rolls-Royce, valued at around $500,000, to anyone who could
sink the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich. (Funnily enough, the
car's vanity license plate is "Bayraktar," a reference to the
Turkish-made drones that have conducted hundreds of operations over
Ukraine.)

It’s worth noting that this may sound a bit odd because the brothers
use the Ukrainian spelling of their name, and Russia obviously uses
Russian spellings for their ships, but Hryhorovych and Grigorovich are
the same name (think of Smith, Smyth and Smithe in English). Indeed,
Serhiy claimed in a recent [4]interview with a Ukrainian YouTuber that
he targeted that specific frigate because it “puts my last name to
shame.”

Whether Serhiy was serious or not, it got the CEO, the company and the
next installment of “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” a ton of free press coverage ahead
of its late November release date. And this time around, Russia seems
quite unhappy about the freelancing Ukrainian entrepreneurs trying to
bounty their way through the Russian navy: after threatening to ban the
game, Moscow is now waging an information war against it on at least
two fronts.
The funny thing is that, in a game of ‘Would You Rather,’ I think I
would choose this over Russian conscription. (Courtesy photo)

First, a pretty low-effort [5]review bombing campaign. Russian players
allegedly can give the game a terrible review and collect five rubles
for every 200 views the bad review gets. Since that's almost a nickel
at the current exchange rate, color me curious about how effective that
campaign will be. (Also, check back to [6]Hip-Pocket Gaming for my
upcoming review: “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: A Terrible Game with Terrible
Spelling that’s Barely Worth ₽6,445.”)

But the larger, more significant disinformation campaign is the rumor,
[7]seemingly Russian in origin, that "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2" collects user
information to help Ukrainian authorities conscript male players who
are “suitable for mobilization.” Maybe that could be effective? Plenty
of people don't want to serve on the front lines of the Russo-Ukraine
War, but I expect a rumor that a video game-assisted conscription
effort would be seen as more alarming.

It’s unclear how this new front between Russia and Ukraine might
expand. For now, though, expect that the Admiral Grigorovich will keep
sailing, and "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2" will keep selling.

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References

1. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/11/12/russian-gamers-interested-in-s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-heart-of-chornobyl-could-risk-treason-charges-to-buy-an-fps-its-developer-won-t-even-sell-in-russia
2. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/10/31/about-8000-north-korean-troops-now-ukraines-border-are-expected-combat-soon-us-says.html
3. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/42177
4. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/42177
5. https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/stalker-2s-russian-players-allegedly-bribed-to-review-bomb-ukranian-made-game-2992760/
6. https://www.military.com/off-duty/games/hip-pocket-gaming
7. https://www.404media.co/stalker2-disinformation/
8. https://www.military.com/newmembers/join-cta16
9. https://www.parsintl.com/publications/military-com