Entropia News: Notice #StandWithUkraine

50k + revenue share + sanctions... that sure deserves a thumbs up... hopefully MA have a cash cow in Russia with some influence. It's a long shot of course but you never know - possibly it could be part of wider upset at least. Sure wish this madness would stop.

 

"... allowing Entropians to also help ..."

How I despise corporate euphemisms. The writers of these blurbs are probably so much trained that they don't notice it anymore. "Allowing" is giving someone a choice. Taking it out of the income which otherwise would be redistributed through the regular mechanisms is something else. If there was an in-game donation box or something, that would be "allowing". In principle, this is totally superfluous of course since everyone is free to donate any which way they can, it just is a kind of reminder.

Okay, I get it that one wants to do something, anything, in the current environment. That the news about it are heavily censored and one-sided, nobody wants to hear though. In some places we've come as far as punishing people who point out truths not currently in favour. Or even those who just fail to join into the universal virtue signalling. A company which is sort of unfree to ignore the flow, it's almost impossible not to. Several months later and the crisis still not over nor our political leaderships one bit wiser in their responses to it, I want to take it as a good sign for MA that this was limited to one month. It should be tax-deductible anyway.

On the other hand, the part about sanctioning players and effectively withholding their rightful possessions on the sole basis of their country of residence is a total no-go. But even that is en-vogue nowadays. Again. (Ever read "Sleepwalkers" by Christopher Clark?) Government sanctions against money transfers to and from Russia may be a hindrance, and MA could declare force majeure. But they didn't.

 

Was discussing with a friend (Az from Entropia way back when). He pointed out that with the financial systems being kinda shut off it's probably not so much that MA are choosing to withhold but more they'd have to go to some effort to continue sending money to Russia... and that is somewhat frowned upon at the moment to put it mildly... might be it isn't even allowed or at least without negative consequences.

As for the player thing yes of course everyone can and probably should donate as most of the involved charities are providing medical/food or shelter aid and who should be against that? No harm in MA donating some share of the profits off of player activities. Lets face it players will play anyhow, even if they are unlikely to inflate their play due to the donation it's nice to think that some of that play time/money went to a good cause.

Wist

 

Many of it's citizens don't agree with, nor have any control over what their government is doing, so don't agree with MA on this.

 

That's what I meant to point out, but they chose not to say so. Otoh the sentiment created in public space would punish them if they said anything to the tune of they didn't agree but were forced to. A company dependent on its public image can seldom afford that. This is the part I find so problematic because it throws a whole people under the bus, while until recently everything was about anti-discrimination. Doesn't anyone find it strange how we made a 180 degree u-turn in such a short time? In my view it is utterly bigoted how it turns out that you can discriminate against one _kind_ of people with impunity, or are even required to lest you get accused of siding with them, but not against another _kind_ regardless of what they do to you (trying to avoid the r-word like the plague but probably even that doesn't work.)

 

There are no unbiased news, never have been and never will be. The key is to get the viewpoints from all sides if you want to know anything at all. And being allowed to do so by your own decision. They may all sugar-coat and obfuscate or outright lie. But only this way you get the maximum possible number of puzzle pieces and can determine which parts are verifiable and which are not. But when your own authorities step in and try to force only one side on you, then a breaking point is reached. We thought in '89 that was a thing of the past but here we are firmly beyond that point yet again. And this time, it's not going to end well. Enjoy your games while you can.

 

It's a tricky one. Indeed why punish the innocent rather than Putin and chums? Complicated answer. This one comes to mind...

I don't know if it's true or not (change comes through the barrel of the gun) but certainly pissing off the inhabitants of an entire country seem one of the few non-violent ways to at least try and stop said country's leaders from doing the crazy shit. Of course,... this doesn't take into account counter measures like shutting down all independent media and arresting everyone and their bicycle that disagrees with said leadership... but well, I guess we tried. Sorta reminds me of that line from Hitch hikers:

Prosser: "You can't lie in front of the bull dozer indefinitely"
Dent: "I'm game! We'll see who rusts first!"

Fairly certain we'll all be held to ransom over Gas this coming Winter. Which reminds me I should buy and electric fan heater while I still can...

 

Very tricky. EU could have thousands of players from Russia for all we know, so MA would be losing a lot of their player base by effectively not allowing them to play the game and there isn't a huge player base as it is! As to the other issue, fuel prices will definitely be going right up going by the news this morning, even though BP, Shell and others have made huge profits. In turn, energy suppliers like e-on will have to increase their prices to customers.

 

Yeh I heard that too... including their pitiful whining that "no one cared when they were running deficits so why all care when they make mega profit?". I think the world will struggle to make violin tiny enough for that one...