The Russian Prosecutor’s Office wants to ban the computer game Last Train Home. It was developed by the Brno studio Ashborne Games. The game allegedly incites hatred against Red Army soldiers. “Until now, we have not received any official statement, either from Russia or from the prosecutor’s office or from the Russian court,” explains the head of the Brno studio, Petr Kolář, to Czech Radio.
Brno
15:34 August 15, 2024 Share on Facebook
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When we were developing the game, we tried to make it not black and white | Photo: Ashborne Games
Recently, there was news that the Russian Prosecutor’s Office has banned or will ban the sale of Last Train Home in Russia. I wonder how you found out, how did you get this information?
On Tuesday, one of my colleagues, who has family from Russia, so he also follows Russian news, shared with us that on the Russian server Meduza this message appeared that the Russian Prosecutor’s Office in St. Petersburg is trying to ban our game Last Train Home in Russia, or at least ban its sale to be precise.
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We have not received any official statement, either from Russia or from the prosecutor’s office or from the Russian court. We have seen on various Russian websites that there should be a hearing next week on August 22nd at the St. Petersburg court that should make a decision. It is some day when they will solve extremist crimes, so they included our game there.
Will this be a hearing without you?
That’s right, neither we nor our publisher THQ Nordic were invited, so it’s basically going to be a court-only hearing from what I understand.
What do you make of their comments that they feel the game is a negative portrayal of Russia at the time when the Czechoslovak Legionnaires were there, and your game is about them trying to get home?
Of course, this is a complicated question, because the moment we started making the game, we started making a game about the story of some fictional last train, and we started to deal with what historical sources we can draw from. We solved it with historians, we solved it with the Czechoslovak legionary community, which has thorough documentation of the entire anabasis.
This was a necessity at the time, because the soldiers, when they returned to the newly established Czechoslovakia, needed to receive some sort of pension. All this had to be documented in detail, money was involved, so the documentation had to be very detailed. Thus, we were based primarily on this documentation, plus we consulted with historians.
And when we were developing the game, we tried to make it not black and white, so that when the players play, they perceive that it is a war, and war itself is on purpose. It’s not that one side is necessarily evil and the other side is necessarily good, that’s never how it works in life. So in this, even though the enemies are mostly Red Army men, we have different situations where, for example, a Red Army man comes to the train with his family and asks if we could bring the family to the next city with a doctor, because the family is sick. And of course it’s up to the player to decide if they decide to drive the Red Army man out because he’s a Red Army man – so basically an enemy, or if they decide to help the family and take them to the next town with the doctor.
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In the same way and in the opposite guard, it is also with the white army, when sometimes the white army will help, sometimes it can even betray the player. So in this one, we decided to portray the situation as it was based on historical sources, that it was not a simple situation and there were a lot of complicated things that are very difficult to explain. On the other hand, we made a simplification on purpose at the beginning of the game, which may have contributed to the fact that the view of at least Russian players who tried it is often negative. In the beginning, we used almost a comic book villain – the fictional General Morozov, who represents the Red Army and often has theatrical speeches, kills the commander of the train in which the player is. So this is something that was mentioned very often in the Russian reviews, that there is a reason to think that the game is flawed.
We made it to build some atmosphere even for people who don’t know anything about that part of history because we distribute the game all over the world. I dare to doubt that even Americans would know something about this part of history, when it is not properly taught here either. So in that regard, we made some simplifications there, but as the player gets further, he will find that the biggest enemy is neither the Red Army, or possibly the White Army, nor the Green Army. The biggest enemy is the journey itself along the Trans-Siberian highway, when it is necessary to cross Siberia in winter.
The player must ensure that his soldiers have enough heat and that he has enough fuel not only to heat the individual cars, but even to keep the train going, to keep the soldiers healthy, to have enough food, to have enough supplies to be able to combat. These are the things that we depicted in the game and which, I believe, the University of St. Petersburg, which was supposed to provide documents to the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office, could not even take into account if they did not play the game thoroughly to the end.
What was your initial reaction at your studio or even at your publisher when you found out that something like this was what you said it was?
There were several reactions. Of course, some people cheered, because from our point of view it is a success that we are thought of in this way. In Russia, something is taught about the given period that is not entirely in accordance with the historical sources that we know. I understand that in times of war, each side has its own truth, so this is difficult. We felt that we had done our research thoroughly and that we had done it as well as possible.
So we took this to some extent as a confirmation that we did the research thoroughly, that it could have affected the Russian side, because it does not correspond to their way of teaching history. The second thing is that we considered that to some extent, even if it will hurt us in terms of sales in Russia, it can also be some form of advertising globally. Because the fact that the game is banned in Russia is a topic that is now resonating around the gaming internet.
We also noticed that sales increased at the same time, both in Russia, where players are probably worried that the game will be banned, and around the world. It came out at the same time that we have a discount on our game because our publisher TJQ Nordic was celebrating an event, so for the last 14 days there is a pretty big sale where the game is available for half off. And so at the beginning of the sales, at the beginning of the discount, we saw some increase in players buying it. And now again we are seeing some increase in players who are buying it precisely because of this situation.
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In other words, it didn’t harm you more or less, or you don’t look at it as if the information would harm you and rather help you, can you say that?
You can say that because if we look at how Russia, or the Russian Federation to be precise, is doing in terms of sales, it is in the top ten countries, at least on Steam, in terms of sales numbers. And we sell it on Steam and Good Old Games.
With the fact that if you look at the earnings from it, it is of course significantly lower, because Russia has a lower purchasing power, that is, the game is sold there at a lower price. It also follows that the Russian Federation, if measured by earnings, is somewhere at the end of the top twenty. It is comparable to, for example, Austria and Slovakia, which are significantly smaller countries in terms of sales than, for example, the United States, Germany, or the Czech Republic, which is very high in this sales ranking.
How many copies have you sold already or how many are you selling if you can tell or what milestone have you passed?
We’ve sold some lower hundreds of thousands of copies, with the expectation that it will continue to sell at various discounts and such, so we’re on the trajectory that was estimated by the publisher.
It’s not a surprise either way. It’s not that it’s been a resounding success in terms of sales, or a failure. On the other hand, the publisher is probably excited about the critical reception from the players, because both journalists and players rate our game quite highly for the fact that it is the first game of our studio, it is, at least according to our publisher, a great success.
You are continuing on some DLCs (extension – editor’s note) or are you planning something, are you still developing the game further, or is it already finished and are you doing other projects?
Just this spring we released an expansion, a DLC called Legion Tales, which shows some other stories of the legionnaires, and there’s also the famous Chelyabinsk incident, which is somewhat infamous because there was some arresting of the civilian population there Czechoslovak legionnaires.
When the train was passing through the Chelyabinsk stop, out of nowhere a rail flew into the train and injured one of the soldiers. The soldiers then of course stopped the train, got out and started trying to find the culprit. So this is something that we also portrayed so that all sides of the conflict could be seen, that it is not only necessarily flattering for the Czechoslovak legionnaires. Although here, at least from my point of view, they acted within the law when they tried to defend themselves against an attack.
And as you also asked about reactions in the studio, one of the reactions is that we were pleased that the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office could deal with it. Because that means it has enough capacity to deal with, from our point of view, trivial things like this, when there are a lot of things that, from our point of view, are much more important, such as human rights violations in Russia. So here this only shows that the capacity is there. Thus, we have hope that human rights in Russia will also be dealt with by the Russian prosecutor’s office.
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