At the end of October, at Paris Games Week, the largest French video game fair, visitors who were feeling a little chauvinistic at heart were able to leave the long lines to try American blockbusters, such as the latest call of Duty Black OpsAnd try French creations instead. At the “Games made in France” stand, a dozen publishers, from Ankama (for savara) to Art (for Finding Fael) presented their recent or future creations. Along with them: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marines 2a high-budget and commercially successful game this fall, published by the French company Focus Entertainment, which quadrupled its turnover thanks to it.
except that Space Sailor 2 It is not really made in France, but rather сделано в россии“made in Russia”. Focus Entertainment is indeed the game’s publisher, but the title was developed by Saber Interactive, a company founded in St. Petersburg in 2001. However, although it now flies the American flag, it still appears to operate primarily from Russia, like the Ukrainian one. The press recently highlighted: on the social network LinkedIn, 400 of Saber Interactive’s 900 registered employees indicate that they live in Russia; and the director of the group’s Russian subsidiary, Vladimir Chernyish, is listed as “studio manager” in the credits of Space Sailor 2. The title’s Facebook page, for its part, is mainly managed from Russia.
Relative distance traveled
Space Sailor 2 It is an emblematic case but far from being isolated. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, several local video game studios have been very careful to distance themselves from their home country. Mundfish, the developer ofatomic hearta shooter released in 2023 and set in an alternative, steampunk Soviet Russia, has removed anything linking it to Russia from its website. While several Russian press reports from the studio’s pre-war offices attest that it was created in Moscow, its “About” page now claims that it was founded. “by a team of like-minded people in Cyprus.” The head of the studio introduces himself today as “Robert Bagratuni.” A pseudonym because, in marital status, “Robert” is actually called Maxim Zatsepin.
Mundfish exfiltrated some of its developers to Serbia and Cyprus after the start of the war, closed offices in Moscow and claims to have no connection with “Russian state companies or administrations”. But in reality the company maintains important ties with Moscow, including a subsidiary still in operation and an exclusive distribution contract with the video game subsidiary of VK, a company indirectly controlled by the Russian state.
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