The sanctions of Europe and the United States of America due to the invasion of Ukraine are also felt by Russian gamers, who lose the opportunity to buy traditional technologies such as PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch game consoles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to please gamers and has tasked his government with looking into a way to make Russia's own game consoles and laptops. Russia is even supposed to create its own operating system and cloud interface for playing games and using programs.
Russia wants to develop its domestic game industry without foreign companies, which left its market after the start of the war in Ukraine, stopped selling their products and shut down their services. The plan is drawn up for five years, and the game console should be available between 2026 and 2027. Experts fear that Russia, thanks to China, will copy the current consoles from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.
Many experts shake their heads at Russia's plan and remind failure with a custom game development engine. In 2022, the federation wanted to create a national video game engine to provide free of charge to Russian developers. But later it turned out that the engine is too expensive for Russia. The development was supposed to require one billion rubles. These were allegedly offered by a mysterious investor. But it's been quiet since then.
In addition, since last year, Russia has been trying to promote more games created by Russian developers on BRICS territory (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and United Arab Emirates).
As part of this initiative, an event was held in the Russian city of Kazan at the beginning of the month the first Games of the Future tournament. The competitions were divided into physical and digital. More than 270 teams from 107 countries were to participate, and the tournament had a “global audience”. At least that's what Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko claims, who spoke about the huge success and inspiration for the whole world. The competition lasted almost two weeks. The next year is to be held in 2025 on the territory of another country. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are among the possible candidates.