03-24-2022 12:02 PM
So as a single user i am not affected as much, but given the state of current geo-political tides and the general trends, it is visibly apparent that the current structure was never suited for a device like this.
https://www.roadtovr.com/russia-meta-facebook-instagram-quest-ban/
Last week Reuters revealed that Meta was taking a temporary stance on how it’s addressing hate speech on Facebook and Instagram. The report maintained that users in many of the former Eastern Bloc countries who called for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion wouldn’t be considered a breach in terms of service. It was later clarified that only users in Ukraine would be exempt, and not the wider list of surrounding countries.
Now both Facebook and Instagram have been banned outright in Russia, with the country cutting those services off to some 70 million users in response to Meta’s now fairly obvious stance on just who it supports in the conflict. Meta messaging app WhatsApp hasn’t been specifically included in the ban, although that has the distinct possibility of changing fairly soon.
Honestly this only punishes users, and therefore if facebook is blocked in your country it essentially blocks you from ever accessing your games again.
But the limitations are further than that.
03-26-2022 03:22 AM
Steam has a similar issue. Valve has already blocked all payments to Russian developers and Gabe threatened to cut off Russian gamers.
Buying from Valve, Sony, Microsoft, Epic all have risks if your country gets banned too. Even if they offer an offline mode, there are usually restrictions (like needing to be online in order to activate offline or many games needing to start online at least once before they can be changed to offline. Steam Support also says offline can be deactivated if you don't shut down Steam cleanly, like if you turn off your PC or force quit Steam)
Just the other day the PS5's Gran Turismo 7 single player mode went down for two days because it requires an internet connection to run and they took down the servers for maintenance. If Sony was blocked in your country, no more GT7, even single player.
Whenever possible I buy from GOG, so I get DRM free games. As long as I have the download backed up somewhere, I never have to worry about offline modes, accounts, GOG staying available, etc. (Usually not an option for VR, not much on GOG, I'm talking mainly about non-VR)
03-26-2022 05:28 AM - edited 03-26-2022 05:29 AM
Why in the world punish Russian Developers or Gamers?
Pretty sure the vast majority of the Russian people do not support what is currently going on.
Punish the government, not the people.