You put the economic sanctions on the whole country and against it's leaders, you help the other side (using Russian gamer's money if you wish), but you don't alienate the regular people, especially pro-Western Russians with your boycotts that make no sense whatsoever. Because that way you just push the pro-Westeners back into the Putin's arms (he always told us that the West is our enemy, and now you prove him right). Your boycott is actually counter-productive, and i was sorry to read that Putin's rating in Russia actually increased in the last few days.

The large portion of Russians who play games are pro-Westerners (pro-Putins are watching state TV instead and you can't boycott that), also the large portion of them are young men. So what happens when you take their games from them? There's gone another pillar in their lives, and another reason to resist the government who might send them to the actual war soon. And there you go, helping Putin to send his meat-fodder to the battlefield, good job guys.

Those island should belong to Japan anyway, but you are right, people form far away regions of Russia can't go demonstrating to Moscow. But they can go demonstrating to their local leaders. Demand elections about independence, this would be illegal of course, Russian citizens can't go demanding independence, but what will Moscow do, their army is bogged down in Ukraine. And Crimea is an example they set themselves, people can vote and Moscow will comply. (Crimea voting to join Russia was of course fraudulent and made at gun point, but that is the official narrative Moscow gave).

You are missing the point. Moral standarts only have worth if they are applied equally and at all times. Watch GOG not do anything about any other conflicts from this point onwards, just like it ignored any conflicts in the past. I'm fine with being blocked from the store if the next time USA bombs some middle-eastern country for no reason they also get banned. Not that GOG will ever do that.

This ban is an empty gesture. GOG are not losing anything because there is no way for russians to pay for things in international stores anyway, instead they've decided to further punch down russian and belarussian civilians. Why not give free games to Ukrainians who are suffering and want to escape reality for a bit instead? Oh wait, that would actually cost them money, we can't have that.

The fact that you presume to know all the details from your remove and are ready to charge millions with your opinion says more about you. The less apt toward taking a position in ignorance a man is, the less likely he is to be made a fool in retrospect. You'll learn it with age.

"Boo, I hate our dictatorship, and its war against our neighbours is an atrocity."

no more videogame for you

"What ? Wargh, long live Putin, death to all Ukrainians !!"

I know they're dripping the whataboutism into your vodka these days, but you're kind of taking the cake here.

If the American people have no real clue what's going on, I can understand that to a degree. But you know the geography here. You know that Poland, where GOG resides, has the invading forces on their doorstep as soon as the Ukraine falls.

You know that the Tsar believes in this crazy conspiracy shit in which the "slavic" and the "eurasian" people are battling it out in some kind of Highlander-esque end times scenario. So he has to "unite", hence attack and enslave all the slavic people first.

Including Poland.

This is an act of self-preservation for GOG. The faint hope that the Tsar can be stopped by sanctions alone. Yes of course it's also solidarity with Ukraine. They see their brothers attacked and killed. And they're readily taking in the refugees pouring into their country. Who's going to recompense them for that? Putin? The guy who slits Putin's throat one of these days?

If things go halfway right, you'll pay reparations for the rest of your life. You, as a citizen of Russia. Your oligarchs will of course not suffer half as badly. 92 years the German people paid reparations after World War I. And they're still paying for World War II. There's no going back to normal in a few short decades after this shit.

I know you can't exactly go to the streets and protest, because that gets you imprisoned. I know that these sanctions hit the impoverished masses of the Putin regime harder than its many oligarchs. You're not responsible for the shit that your government is pulling. But going online and vomiting propaganda shit into Polish based forums like some run-of-the-mill troll farm, that is something you do have a responsibility for.

Until Russia is out of Ukraine (the entirety of the Ukraine including Donezk + Crimea), ousted Putin, and has started paying reparations big time, you'll have to deal with crippling sanctions. I'm sorry.

No answer to the question, and more excuses. Admittedly a very difficult question, but still. Just wanted to see how you would respond. As expected.

Anyways, I already explained how cutting off Russia and penalising Russians is an avenue worth considering, and might even be the desired way to inflict penalties on Putler. It's hardly ideal, but the conclusion isn't a given that it will drive more (than the already hundreds of thousands of) Russian young men to slaughter neighbouring countrymen. It might even have the opposite effect and increase awareness to the situation. But given the choice - do business with Russia, or don't, I think most people/companies realise what is the best way to penalise Russia for the invasion.

"Putin's rating in Russia actually increased in the last few days"

HAHAHAH did it go from 100% to 125%? Why do you even watch your government news? It's just pure fiction at this point.

Geographically, Russia is already a neighboring country of Poland regardless of Ukraine because Kaliningrad is part of Russia.

Thanks for presuming I'm a kid and strawmanning me.

But let's rewind a bit. You said

"To be clear, I don't have a stance on the war itself. I can see some solid reasoning on both sides."

A horrific and brutal invasion by Russia on an innocent neighbouring country to complete it's full conquering and annexation, and you don't have any stance about it? Except to be a Putler apologist? Which itself is already a stance, mind you.

What reasoning is there for Putler's slaughtering of Ukrainians? If you're gonna argue this, you better have some damn solid arguments, otherwise it's equivalent to symphatising with Hitler's invasion of Poland due to "Poland's possible threat to Germany". It's about as sensible and rational as that. Yes, I pulled the nazi card, aptly so I might add.

You're really going to pout and play the injured party when you ignored the entirety of my post and attacked over the one sentence? Worse, you feel compelled to spam fallacy-accusations in every post like you have that chart open in another window. It's exhausting talking to people who are utterly incapable of having a discussion in good faith.

For being a fallacy-lover, you sure don't hesitate to resort to appeals to emotion, Reductio ad Hitlerum, strawmanning and a host of others yourself. Do you do this because you're incapable of making meritorious arguments on their own value, or have you simply compared everything to Hitler for so long and so often that you no longer have the ability to perceive events in any other context? Because this isn't the first charge of Hitler I've seen from you. Or even the second. Or third.

Yeah, the whole Iraq fiasco was a low point for the US (they've had others). One would think that we'd be moving away from this, but maybe we'll always be an inch away from disaster.

Otherwise, for all things being equal, unfortunately its not the human condition.

Gog (Polish company) is probably strongly rattled by the fact that a neighboring country is getting invaded.

I'm more rattled than usual at two separate things:
- Nuclear plans are getting attacked and nuclear powers could feasibly trigger ww iii and wipe out 90%+ of the human population here
- The contract, as perceived by a lot of people in developed countries (myself included) is this: a status quo among world powers (North American & increasingly South America too, some countries in Africa, Europe & Russia, developed countries in Asia, Australia) is necessary for knowledge-based civilizations to persist. Attacking/toppling third/second world countries is not nice and should be condemned in the strongest way, but it doesn't disrupt that status quo of civilized behavior between well developed countries (and the hope, perhaps delusional, is that everyone will eventually join that club). Russia attacking Ukraine certain does disrupt that status quo.

I won't pretend that the Iraq didn't make me despair at the human condition (still can't believe nobody in the US administration responsible went to jail over this). However, what's happening in Ukraine right now, that terrifies me. Your leader terrifies me.

Just ignore him. No point in arguing with ignorant person.

Thanks for the info, I caught up on my homework there just now. Strategically, it seems thankfully irrelevant at present. Of course, if Putin were to take Lithuania first ... but let's just not think about that for now.

Who's pouting??
Oh look. A bunch of obfuscation without addressing a single point or answering a single question from my post.

What a surprise.

Let me know when you have any intention in having a discussion about the brutal invasion of an innocent country and your pitiful excuses for it.

You remember this discussion began with you ignoring my entire post and refusing to acknowledge any single point in it, right? I can't tell if you're trying to be ironic here or are so self-absorbed past seeing the staggering hypocrisy of your post.

Deimos is right, this is striking me as a fruitless waste of time with a troll.