Due to Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, many Russian companies and the general population are suffering from the sanctions that have been placed on the country. This has led to some strange twists from businesses, with the latest coming from the Russian developer of RPG Loop Hero.
First spotted by Vice, it appears the developer is encouraging Russian fans to pirate its game. In a post on VK, a Russian social media platform, the game's developer Four Quarters directed those unable to use Steam or Nintendo Switch's eShop to purchase Loop Hero to instead download the game via a pirate site.
Steam and Nintendo, like many other games companies, have suspended their services in Russia leaving gamers in the country unable to buy from their online storefronts. As a result Four Quarters has turned to directing fans to torrent Loop Hero, and even including a link to the game on Russian torrent site RuTracker.
"It is not known when all this will end, therefore, in such difficult times, we can only help everyone to raise the pirate flag (together with VPN) and share the most popular distribution on the rutracker", Four Quarter's post read, as translated by Google Translate.
Fans have asked if there are other ways to support Four Quarter since they cannot buy their game. Owing to sanctions on state-owned banks, many Russian businesses are unable to access their earnings. In response to these concerns, the developer asked fans to look after their own.
"We are very grateful for your support, but the truth is that everything is fine with us, send this support to your family and friends at this difficult time", Four Quarters wrote.
Despite the sanctions and the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war, the developer has continued to work on Loop Hero. A new update is almost 80 percent complete with plans to finish soon, according to Four Quarters, and patches and even a mobile version of the game are in development. But how smoothly this all goes remains to be seen as sanctions have affected the economy and technological access in the country.
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