The head of the HRC called for banning games with “bad ideas” in Russia, the developers of Overwatch 2 commented on the poor start of the game on Steam, the design director of the Call of Duty series games left Treyarch, – we tell you what happened in the gaming industry over the weekend.
Head of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) Valery Fadeev wants to stop distributing games with “bad ideas” in Russia. For example, those that contain scenes of violence and cruelty. “Regardless of freedom of speech and everything else, this should just be banned, and that’s it. Close. Fine. This [has] nothing to do with freedom and human rights,” Fadeev said at the Army-2023 forum. The head of the HRC added that games are a huge segment of influence on minds, so the state needs to develop a clear program to regulate it and find people who can make games of “proper quality and content.”
In turn, the deputy head of Roskomnadzor, Vladimir Logunov, said that game developers should not substitute historical facts. He pointed out that games are one of the elements of youth education and it is important that they help to form a reasonable perception of people and events in the real and virtual worlds. “Our task is to create reliable mechanisms for creative policy, so that we have our own games, our own technologies for delivering the right content, so that the games that appear on the Russian market, first of all, protect our people, protect our history, do not propagandize violence, cruelty, foster a sense of patriotism, foster love for the motherland, for to the Fatherland,” Logunov said.
Game director of Overwatch 2 Aaron Keller admitted that the developers were not very pleased to see the review-bombing of their game on Steam. Recall that Overwatch 2 became the lowest rated game in the history of the platform, receiving more than 100 thousand negative reviews. Keller noted that many gamers were unhappy with the cancellation of a full-fledged PvE mode, but for Blizzard, creating such a mode has become too ambitious a task, and the company is not going to return to it. Keller also stated that despite the bad reviews on Steam, Overwatch 2 managed to increase the audience and attract many new users.
▪️David Vonderhaar has announced his retirement from Treyarch. He worked in the studio for 19 years and during this time managed to participate in the creation of eight games in the Call of Duty series, starting with Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. In recent years, Vonderhaar has held the post of design director at Treyarch. Nevertheless, Vonderhaar does not leave the gaming industry and is already working on an unannounced game.