The Kommersant newspaper reports that the ANO Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry (RVI) sent a letter to the State Duma Information Policy Committee with objections to the recent bill to regulate the industry.
Image source: Steam (Yorik)
Let us recall that the bill “On activities for the development and distribution of video games in the Russian Federation”, introduced on December 12 into the State Duma, proposes:
- oblige digital platforms to provide technical capabilities for game publishers to inform users about their content;
- oblige video game distributors (including Steam and GOG) to identify users using a mobile number, the Unified Identification and Authorization System (the State Services portal) or the Unified Biometric System;
- carry out an examination of games for the presence in them of elements prohibited for distribution on the territory of the Russian Federation.
According to RVI, the bill contradicts the decrees of Russian President Vladimir Putin on supporting the industry, as well as the work already carried out by the Ministry of Digital Development, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade with industry participants.
The organization opposes the procedure for identifying players (this will lead to restrictions on the work of Russian developers on foreign sites) and examination of the content of products.
The dialogue with the initiators of the bill is carried out in the association APRIORI (image source: Cyberia Nova)
The RVI letter was sent to the committee on December 16, but has not yet been received by it. The new chairman, Sergei Boyarsky, assured Kommersant that the apparatus “ready for dialogue with all interested market participants”.
The Kommersant informant believes that the bill is unlikely to be adopted before the end of 2024, but does not rule out this after revision and allows for a compromise scenario: “Some of the provisions will be included after the frankly “crude” provisions of the bill are finalized, some will be included through a government resolution with testing through an experiment.”.
Meanwhile, market participants report that in parallel, a working group under the Ministry of Digital Development has prepared another act, which, unlike the controversial bill, “worked with the industry and authorities”.
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