Wargaming’s tank warfare MMO World of Tanks understandably becomes quite a delicate property after a real war is declared and real tanks similar to the ones depicted in the game start rolling. After Russia declared war on Ukraine, Wargaming had handled its property quite sensibly by pulling all advertising for the game and redesigning the adverts as to not show any advancing military vehicles.
Other games similarly limited their advertising as the public image for a single game is an easy thing to control through all its official advertising and social media channels. Much harder to taper are the options of individual employees that end up casting aspersions on the entire developer.
It’s for this reason, Wargaming has fired the creative director for World of Tanks, Sergey Burkatovskiy. It happened because of a since deleted Facebook from Burkatovskiy where he stated his support for "the operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation." Wargaming was quick to separate itself from the former developer's statement stating it was "his personal opinion, which categorically does not coincide with the position of the company."
Sometime after his original post Burkatovskiy took to Facebook once more saying he had “broke up with the VG,” speculated to have meant WG, meaning Wargaming. It was later revealed that Wargaming had fired Burkatovskiy. The company then pledged $1 million to the Ukrainian Red Cross, which will go towards helping Ukrainians affected by the invasion. Wargaming which has a history of charity work, also claimed it was dedicated to using all available company resources in aiding its Ukrainian employees in traveling to neighboring countries.
Wargaming is a company founded in Belarus, a country which borders both Russia and Ukraine. The developer also employs over 500 hundred people from its studio located in Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv. It's no wonder then that the company would have strong feelings on the matter and would like to make them clear. It is not the only eastern European game developer to have done so. Polish developer CD Projekt Red recently pledged $240,000 to a humanitarian organization working directly with refugees from Ukraine.
Many video game developers and entertainment industry studios have stated their support for Ukraine in the days since the invasion began. Some trying to help in whatever small ways they can, be it donations or even helping their colleagues escape the rapidly escalating war zones. Games like World of Tanks may depict endless repeating war as their primary gameplay loop, but the people behind these games know it's best kept in the virtual world.
World of Tanks is available on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: PC Gamer