Cyberpunk 2077 developer cuts off sales in Russia, Belarus

Poland-based games developer CD Projekt Red, which has developed popular games like Cyberpunk 2077, is cutting off sales of its products to Russia and Belarus.

“In light of the Russian military invasion in our neighbouring country of Ukraine, until further notice, the CD PROJEKT Group has made the decision to halt all sales of our games to Russia and Belarus,” the company said on Twitter.

“Today, we begin working with our partners to suspend digital sales and cease physical stock deliveries of CD PROJEKT Group products, as well as all games distributed on the GOG platform, to the territories of Russia and Belarus” it added.

In a report to investors, the company estimated that “the approximate cumulative share of Russia and Belarus in CD PROJEKT RED product sales and in sales revenues obtained in the GOG.COM segment over the past 12-month period was 5.4 per cent and 3.7 per cent respectively”, reports The Verge.

CD Projekt Red joined Apple in entirely halting sales to Russia. Many other companies have also made changes to their products and services in response to Russia’s invasion, such as Spotify removing content from state-backed Russian media, Facebook no longer recommending Russian state media globally, and EA pulling Russian teams from its FIFA and NHL games.

Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has called on gaming companies around the world to take action against Russia.

In a letter tweeted on Wednesday addressed to “all game development companies and esports platforms”, Fedorov asked that they “temporarily stop the participation of Russian and Belorussian teams and gamers in all international esports events and cancel all international events holding on the territory of Russia and Belarus”.

In the tweet, he tagged the Xbox and PlayStation Twitter accounts directly. A few minutes later, he asked companies like Riot Games, EA, and Ubisoft to close their offices in Russia.

And in a tweet on Thursday, he pleaded to big companies, including Nintendo, Epic Games, Tencent, and Rockstar, saying that Russia “doesn’t have any respect for the principles and humanity. Stop this by halting your games in Russia”.

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