Chornozem Interactive, the studio behind the walking simulator «Echo of Pripyat», has now publicly apologized and said that sales in Russia have been canceled after negotiations with the team.
A scandal erupted in the Ukrainian gaming industry: one of Chornozem Interactive’s partners, screenwriter Andriy Chebankov, discovered that the game was being advertised in Russian «vkontakte», and further screenshots from the working chat only confirmed the studio’s plans to sell the game in Russia:
An echo of Pripyat. I thought about it a bit and decided that the world should know. I didn’t sign the NDA, I just blacked out the names.
It all started with the fact that in the morning I was very “pleased” to receive a message that the head of development was seriously thinking about allowing sales in Russia, because his game was written about by.. pic.twitter.com/9afvcVnvQS
— Andriy Chebankov (@anomalypryt) July 9, 2024
In correspondence, the head of development says that sales in Russia were planned «from the beginning»and also compared his own game with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl, which, unlike GSC Game World’s creation, allegedly will not have a Russian language. The rest of the Chornozem Interactive team criticized the CEO’s idea, and some decided to leave the studio after the news:
Fortunately, his idea did not resonate with the team, and some of them even left. Including me. It’s a good thing I didn’t have time to do anything, because this is fucking bullshit pic.twitter.com/GV3GoWGv7P
— Andriy Chebankov (@anomalypryt) July 9, 2024
Then, under the post, the following appeared commentary (probably from the same development manager):
«Dear Andriy, thank you for trying to ruin several months of hard work and sleepless nights for us. We were going to use the proceeds from the Russian sales in Ukraine, mainly for the Armed Forces, and you know it».
The studio has now released a statement on the game’s official Twitter account apologizing for its plans. The post says that the screenshots of the correspondence do not reflect the full picture, and that the proceeds from the game’s sales were planned to be used to help Ukraine.
«Initially, we did consider entering the Russian market. This was due to the desire to find funds to finance humanitarian initiatives aimed at helping Ukraine in connection with the war and to assist the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, after careful analysis and reflection, we decided to abandon this idea. This decision was made after a conversation with our team».
The full text of the statement is available in the post:
We apologize! pic.twitter.com/keJi47hlam
— Echo of Prypiat (@EchoOfPripyat) July 9, 2024
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