Since the beginning of the invasion of Russia towards Ukraine, Wargaming, the studio in charge of World of Tanks, has taken a stance against what Vladimir Putin's government has done and condemns the war completely. Their commitment to showing support for Ukrainians is so great that they even fired the game director after he made comments in favor of the illegal intervention.
According to a statement shared by Wargaming, the studio has been reviewing its global business relations strategies and has concluded that they will have to abandon Russia and Belarus. This means that both World of Tanks and World of Warships and World of Warplanes will lose their main publisher.
Russia and Belarus are two of the most important markets for Wargaming, who have a tremendous amount of active users. Just last week, there were 2,581,085 players connected in comparison to other regions like Europe (721,490 players) and the United States (130,550). Russian players have found in World of Tanks and its derivatives a very interesting alternative in the war genre within video games.
They give up their operations in Russia and Belarus
With Wargaming's departure, the studio has decided to hand over their operations to the developer Lesta Studio, who will now independently handle what happens with the games. As for Wargaming, they will not receive any profits from Russia or Belarus.
"As of March 31, the company transferred its live gaming business in Russia and Belarus to the local management of Lesta Studio, which is no longer affiliated with Wargaming. The company will not benefit from this process neither today nor in the future. On the contrary, we expect to suffer substantial losses as a direct result of this decision" they expressed from the studio.
At least Russian and Belarusian players will still be able to enjoy World of Tanks, but now all commercial decisions will be the responsibility of Lesta Studio. Likewise, the studio announced that they will close the doors of the studio located in Minsk, Belarus, promising severance pay and support to affected workers.
Despite this sad news, Wargaming has stated that they have full confidence in the future of their business, committing to deliver "quality games" to their users worldwide.