GOG and Steam Restrictions Affect Russian FGC

As the war in Ukraine rumbles on, sanction after sanction has hit Russia. The Eastern European country has been hit with multiple sanctions that have affected just about every area of life. From Apple pay and Google store no longer functioning in the country and making commutes a lot more difficult, to entertainment companies like YouTube and Twitch being unable to remunerate creators due to financial sanctions from the EU. 

Now, even members of the FGC are being hit with popular online stores for fighting games like Steam and GOG are no longer viable due to credit card restrictions. Users who reside in Russia will also find that many payment options on Steam do not work for them. Earlier, CD Projekt RED, a Polish company popular for the Witcher Series and Cyberpunk 2077 released a statement saying that they would be suspending the supply of their games both digitally, through their GOG platform, and physically to the regions of Russia and Belarus. 

All this comes after reports surfaced that Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, appealed to the gaming community including PlayStation and Microsoft to ban Russian accounts on their PlayStation and Xbox platforms respectively. 

It is unknown whether other fighting game publishers and gaming companies will also pull their products from Russia and what the end result of it all will be.