How Russia Uses Games to Promote Z-Ideology

Russian propaganda tries to push its narratives through propaganda programs on TV, social media bot farms, and bribed popular speakers posing as independent bloggers or experts. However, recently she began to work more and more actively in another direction – in video games.

Liga.Tech has revealed what tricks are used by Russian propagandists and how to counter them.

Minecraft and Roblox in the service of propaganda

On one of the servers of the popular "sandbox" Minecraft, where players can build different structures from blocks, the battle for Soledar in January of this year, which ended with the occupation of the city by Russian troops, was reproduced, writes The New York Times. The corresponding video went viral on VK social networks.

On May 9 of this year, the official World of Tanks channel released a video with a reconstruction of a parade of Soviet vehicles created on the online gaming platform. In another popular Roblox "sandbox", one user recreated a parade of troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in honor of Russia Day, which was celebrated in June.

Communication platforms such as Steam communities or Discord channels are actively used for propaganda and are popular among gamers. Here, bots or real users try to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They are often directly identified by using the letter Z in their nicknames, which has become a symbol of the occupying Russian troops in Ukraine.

 

However, the Kremlin's biggest information operation in the video game segment was the release of Atomic Heart. The fanatical shooter tells the story of an alternative 1950s, in which the USSR made a breakthrough in robotics and built a utopia, while the USA plunged into crisis. In addition, observant players noticed several "Easter eggs" indicating that the developers, despite their constant declared apoliticalness, fully support the actions of the Kremlin.

Here, the logic of the Russian authorities is clear: young people barely watch television, which means they miss the "five minutes of hate" that are regularly broadcast there. Therefore, they should be moved to places where young people regularly spend time and socialize. Moreover, in video games the necessary narratives can be wrapped in an entertaining form, which simplifies their assimilation.

The activity of Russian propaganda has grown so much that game publishers have begun to pay attention to these segments. Microsoft President Brad Smith said in April that the corporation's security services discovered requests from Russia to infiltrate certain Minecraft and Discord communities. He noted that the techno-giant has even consulted countries' governments on the issue, but sees no cause for concern.

 

According to the head of Microsoft's threat analysis team, Clint Watts, the "Wagner" private mercenary army could use gaming platforms to recruit new mercenaries against the background of the colossal losses of the invaders. She tried to create an image of cool and scary guys for her fighters. Moreover, there are many fans of military themed video games who have served in the military or will go there. It is worth noting that "Wagner's" advertising campaign really tried to be comprehensive: users noticed banners and comments with links to engagement sites, even on the Pornhub platform.

Of course, some Russian players have chauvinistic imperial views and fully support Kremlin policies. That is why he spreads his narrative from the heart, not because he is connected to the structures of propaganda. However, there is no doubt that Moscow is interested in the field of video games. The government financially supported the creation of a suitable Russian graphics engine, which should become a competitor to Unreal Engine. Already in October last year, it became known about the complete failure of this plan. In July, the first state school of e-sports was opened.

 

Recipe for countermeasures. What "alternative propaganda" is there

After the beginning of the invasion of the Russian army, Microsoft and most Western companies closed their subsidiaries, stopped selling games and providing services on the territory of the Russian Federation, in order not to violate EU and US sanctions. Therefore, it has become more difficult for Putin's propaganda to work in online games, but this opportunity has not completely disappeared. Russian users were relatively quick to discover ways to bypass the restrictions through VPNs and other tools.

The fight against it is simplified by the fact that most online games adhere to a policy of zero tolerance for hate speech or discrimination. Their developers are afraid of being accused of condescending to such things and causing a scandal. Therefore, in modern MMOs, a permanent ban can be obtained, even for writing in the heat of name-calling or even for a game nickname.

Ukrainian officials and players should constantly maintain communication with the management of gaming companies, so that they understand that the Z symbol is essentially no different from neo-Nazi paraphernalia, and glorifying the security forces of the occupying country is about the same as promoting ISIS fighters. If they can equalize in the eyes of developers and gamers, it will significantly reduce the gap for Russian propaganda.

It will be more difficult with the use of Soviet and communist symbols, which many in the West see nothing wrong with. The Ukrainian OSINT team Molfar, as The New York Times writes, counted more than a dozen manifestations of pro-Kremlin propaganda in Minecraft, Roblox, World of Tanks and World of Warships, Fly Corp, Armored Warfare and War Thunder. Almost everyone praised the victory of the USSR in World War II. An active information campaign should be conducted here with the aim of conveying the opinion that the Soviet regime was not much different in its misanthropic essence. In addition, this historical event is used by the Kremlin as an excuse for its aggressive actions.

Also, video game promotion can go both ways. It can be used to promote anti-Putin narratives among Russian youth. There is an example of a German studio that created the game Death from Above, which reproduces the attack of Ukrainian drones on the forces of the Russian invaders. The Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat has created a map for Counter-Strike, which contains a room where the player can

get information about the crimes of Russian soldiers and the actual statistics of the dead after death. The map is immediately blocked for download from Russian IP addresses. It has been shown that the lack of alternative sources of information, precisely in the gaming environment, greatly simplifies the task that is set before the propagandists.