With sanctions being placed on Russia because of its aggression in Ukraine, some eSports teams have chosen to move abroad.
Russian eSports Players Forced to Emigrate from Russia to Play
The ongoing invasion has drawn global condemnation, and countries across the world have hit Russia with severe sanctions, one of them being banning Russian players to play eSports in the upcoming events. As you may already know, players need to obtain points for playoffs, and currently, the only way to keep one’s seasons alive is to relocate for the eChampions League.
If there’s one thing that can be said with certainty it’s that the video game industry stands in solidarity and firmly behind Ukraine. Beyond financial support as well as humanitarian aid, video game companies all around the world have issued sanctions regarding Russian players in the upcoming eSports events one can find at bookies Australia.
Some of the latest donations that were achieved by the big video game companies in support of Ukraine are:
- Fortnite raised $144 million for humanitarian relief efforts
- Riot donated #1 million across three humanitarian non-profits
- Excel eSports made a $10.000 donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee
Furthermore, Elden Rung publisher donated more than $600,000 to charity organization Save The Children, Square Enix donated over $350,000 to The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Additionally, across the video game industry, individual game developers went to great lengths to team up and show solidarity by creating a Bundle For Ukraine and raising $4.8 million from 449,625 contributors in just 10 days.
Gaming Companies That Have Shown Support to Ukraine in One Way or Another
Besides the charity fundraising that was made by the majority of gaming companies, several large game studios have also halted their titles being sold in Russia and Belarus. For instance, just last month Microsoft halted all product sales in Russia, followed by PlayStation pulling Gran Turismo 7 from sale in Russia.
Additionally, last month Ukrainian vice prime minister Fedorov called for both Xbox and PlayStation to temporarily block all Belorussian and Russian accounts. Layers of Fear creator Bloober Team, CD Projekt Red as well as EA also stopped selling their games in Russia.
With the Russian gaming market being the 15th biggest in the world and valued at $3.4 billion, restricting sales to Russia will most likely result in a significant loss of profits. The question that arises is, are some companies making a meaningful gesture, or are they leveraging a global catastrophe for a PR opportunity? We can not know.
Team Spirit is Relocating to Serbia
Russian esports organization Team Spirit officially announced last month that they will relocate their teams as well as their employees from Moscow to Belgrade, Serbia, as the war continues to put Easter Europe in a state of crisis.
They stated that the decision to relocate seemed like the only right one given the circumstances as well as that esports has never been tied to a dot on the map. They continued to say that they have been building relationships with the community around the whole world for many years now and that they will continue to do so and that it will get only stronger no matter what language someone speaks or where they live.
