Last week Polish game developer CD Projekt made a public donation to a Polish humanitarian organization in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Poland shares a border with Ukraine and Belarus).
This week, the Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher developer made another strong statement in response to the continued war:
In light of the Russian military invasion in our neighboring 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 entire CD Projekt Group stands firm with the people of Ukraine. […] We know that players in Russia and Belarus, individual who have nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine, will be impacted by this decision, but with this action we with to further galvanize the global community to speak about what is goin on in the heart of Europe.
— CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) March 3, 2022
Other Eastern European studios have made statements of support and donations as well, including 11 bit Studios and Wargaming, the latter of which is actually based in Minsk, Belarus, but with a studio in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Game development is a fully globalized community, and that’s readily apparent in times of big crises. The Pokémon Company is one of the latest to release a statement of support, with a donation of $200,000 to GlobalGiving, to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
