‘You can't forbid anything to Russians’: how gamers will suffer from the new State Duma bill
Now the transfer of login data to accounts will be punishable by a fine
The gaming community has begun to compare Russia with North Korea or City-17 — a city under the control of a totalitarian regime from the game Half Life 2. All because of the bill, which prohibits the transfer of phone numbers and account registration data into the wrong hands. Read more about it in the report of Realnoe Vremya.
Up to 200,000 for trading an account in the game
The bill, which initially should not have affected the gaming community at all, still affected it. We are talking about a document that provides for criminal liability for the transfer of SIM cards and accounts. In this way, the authors of the bill want to protect Russians from scammers, droppers and those who need data. But for gamers, transferring an account is a common thing. This is necessary for a third party to level up your character or account — complete a mission or improve statistics.
Players can “up” a character, which increases the rank in any game. One of the sellers on the Russian online exchange for trading in game items FunPay told Realnoe Vremya about this anonymously.
“You can improve it in any game, except for single-player games. But even there, if you can't complete a mission, I think there are guys who ask you to do it instead of them. I haven't done that. Basically, leveling up characters concerns “old-school” games, such as World of Warcraft or Black Desert Online, where you need to endlessly mine resources. It also concerns well-known games like Counter-Strike or Dota 2,” he said.
Now, transferring login data to accounts will be punishable by a fine:
- from 30,000 to 50,000 rubles for individuals;
- from 50,000 to 100,000 for individual entrepreneurs;
- from 100,000 to 200,000 for legal entities.
The Criminal Code will be supplemented with Articles 274.4 and 274.5. In particularly severe cases, transferring an account may result in a fine of up to 700,000 rubles, forced labour, or even imprisonment for up to three years.
“You can transfer it personally. You can't trade it”
The first to report the upcoming changes was the Russian gaming platform FunPay. On this platform, users earn money by reselling in-game resources, accounts, or levelling up other players' characters. To make transactions, you need access to your account login and password. FunPay announced the closure of the relevant sections on the site, explaining: “Banks will not service, payments will be disabled.”
“Personally, I think that nothing will change dramatically. It's trivial — stupid. What if I want to give my account to a friend who does not have the opportunity to buy a game? It even sounds absurd that I can be prohibited from giving him an account,” the speaker shared his opinion.
At the same time, one of the bills contains a clause about the absence of liability in the case of the lawful use of the transferred account with the consent of the owner. However, this did not calm the FunPay administration.
“You can transfer it personally. You can't trade. You can't maintain a trading platform,” they commented on the situation.
“If you take one of the most popular online games Dota 2, then you could do an MMR Boost — an increase in rating or rank. They either play on the player's account or help him win more matches,” a source for Realnoe Vremya said.
In addition, you can also launder your LP (Low Priority) there — remove the block that is issued when you leave the game prematurely. To do this, you need to successfully play a specified number of battles in a certain mode with a restriction on the choice of heroes.
“Those who scream like crazy, talk about the mothers of their teammates, break things or ruin the game by dying on purpose face this. Your integrity in the game falls, and you are sent there. I also helped restore the mode for a fee,” the interlocutor shared.
Large platforms will suffer
At the same time, according to the director and founder of the Fair Games / GD Forge studios, Yan Shevchenko, such a sale and exchange of accounts is an ambiguous issue.
The speaker expressed the opinion that the new law will most likely have a negative impact on large platforms that organize the sale and purchase of game accounts.
“Regarding going into the shadows — due to the violation of the rules of the games of the services, many platforms were already working in the shadows. For ordinary gamers, who are the majority, this will be unnoticeable — they are not so interested in starting the game the most “pumped up”. An ordinary gamer is just interested in the process of the game and progress.”
Realnoe Vremya’s source believes that users who earn money on this will not disappear anywhere. They have dozens of accounts that will suit each player.
“You can’t ban Russians from doing anything. But if this is accepted and implemented, ordinary players will become truly ‘ordinary players,’” the expert concluded.