With heightened politics, financial sanctions and many other real-world issues that are taking place right now, it’s to no surprise that these topics may crop up in games such as War Thunder. This is why many players are now asking if War Thunder/Gaijin will be affected by financial sanctions due to the current conflict in Ukraine. We would like to stress that this article will only cover the impact on Gaijin/War Thunder and has nothing to do with the conflict in Ukraine itself.

Clearing up False Rumours

Gaijin/War Thunder headquarters are in Russia – FALSE.

Gaijin was originally founded in Moscow by Anton and Kirill Yudinstev back in 2002, there are numerous sources such as crunchbase, Handwiki and the waybackmachine which state that although Gaijin was founded in Moscow their headquarters are located in Budapest (addressed Hungária körút 162-166, 1146 Budapest, Hungary) with numerous offices located around the world.

Here are some sources below that explain these facts;

Gaijin Entertainment is the largest independent video game developer in Russia. Founded in 2002, Gaijin Entertainment employs more than 100 people, consisting of industry thought leaders and highly qualified specialists. Gaijin Entertainment has offices located in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Voronezh and Sevastopol and in 2013 opened a new office in Germany

(source crunchbase)

Gaijin Entertainment was founded in 2002 in Moscow by Anton and Kirill Yudintsev,[7] whose first big project was the PC racing game Adrenaline. After the successful launch of War Thunder, an office in Germany was established, to manage global operations and marketing.[8] Presently, all Gaijin online games are operated from Germany, Cyprus and Hungary,[8] while the development is scattered across Europe.

Source: (handwiki)

These sources clearly show that yes although the main developer company was founded in Moscow their main operations for War Thunder do not operate out of Russia and their main headquarters are in fact in Budapest.

War Thunder will be sanctioned. - FALSE

Please let me make this clear that I or anyone who helps with EWT are in no way experts in financials or political issues so this is something we can’t really clear up, we have been monitoring various forum topics and discussions about this and sadly there isn’t much to go off either.

What we do know is that after sanctions back in 2014 there was absolutely no action taken against Gaijin or WT so it shouldn’t be the case this time around too.

As the headquarters are registered in Budapest (Hungary) this means that they shouldn’t be affected by sanctions anyway as pointed out here;

https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/547911-will-this-game-be-affected-by-the-financial-sanctions/

As you can see from a Forum Moderator’s response they don’t wish to get involved in any political debate/discussion on their forums and link users to their EULA. https://warthunder.com/en/support/eula/

So if it does happen one day, I’m sure they’ll be quick to let us know the implications of one, but for now, don’t worry about sanctions affecting the game.

War Thunder Chat is DISABLED forever. - FALSE

The War Thunder chat has been temporarily disabled because of the sheer amount of political debates taking place across the internet on multiple discussion boards and within games, to prevent the community from falling into a forever-pit of political discussions and hate speech they’ve disabled this feature until further notice... sadly, we don’t know how long ‘temporarily’ means…

You can still use ‘Quick Commands’ and voice chat is active for Squadron Members, let’s hope they enable the chat feature soon as it’s causing more frustration not being able to vent my anger at those spawn camping or robbing my kills!

Perhaps they’ll finally fix the damn thing too, the chat system has always been a pain when it does decide to work.

Here’s the server update posted on the 28th February 2022 https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/547941-server-update-28022022-in-game-chats-have-been-temporarily-disabled/

War Thunder HAS delayed the latest update – Most likely TRUE.

For the first time in War Thunder history, they’ve delayed the most recent major update which would usually drop around 18th – 22nd of March, instead, they have continued development blogs with at least 5-6 posted in one week.

We can only assume that this is a marketing tactic to safeguard the company but also as a moral obligation to not encourage people to play a War orientated game at the moment, there is no official confirmation from Gaijin but it certainly seems like the next update will be unfortunately delayed until further notice.

Conclusion

We’ll say it again that we’re not clued up on politics or how the sanctions will work, for now, War Thunder seems to be in safe hands moving forward and the game shouldn’t be affected.

If there are any changes or interesting topics raised, we’ll be sure to publish them.

Stay positive and keep up the grind.

Everything War Thunder
Published March 4, 2022

18 comments on “Will War Thunder/Gaijin be affected by Financial Sanctions in 2022?”

  1. So what happens if the sanctions are put on the founders or governments in other countries decide to go for the offices ?

      1. I still don't think I will play this game anymore and tbh I think other people should stop playing this game because how do we know that the creator's of this game isn't backing Russia every Russian Companies are going to say they don't follow politics regarding the illegal Invasion of Ukraine by Russian Troops by the order's of Putin and is nazi Regime

  2. I just got done playing only 1 game after being gone for about 1.3 years, because I had quit playing for a number of reasons (Bad Moderators in chat, update changes, game changes, vehicle changes, game balance issues, etc. etc.) as it was. Given what was going on with the Ukrainian issue, I decided on my own accord strangely to log in. That's when I realized the "chat" was gone!! I then googled and found this site.
    I uninstalled, once again. On the survey, I stated my reasons for removing. My personal reasons, for why I left originally. I then stated my reason why I was uninstalling this time, and for good. I was straight forward. It was a heartfelt conviction. Based upon what was happening in Ukraine.
    Sometimes politics is a fact of life. I understand that the person in charge at WT is making a business decision; however the players/customers also have some amount of expression, communication about their participation, interaction in the game and part in it at different levels.
    IF they feel they are being stifled, they might turn away.

    I suppose you're right. Only time will tell moving forward about sanctions, and other things. Their offices are in different locations. But, legalities, and international dealings have strange ways of working out. It's been know primarily as a Russian entity.

    Wargaming World of Tanks also does the same thing. Moving offices all over, and also being based in Cyprus, from Belarus. I'm not up on the fact of that right now, they might be looking a similar issues in time?

    But, I had to make an issue for myself personally. And, that's all I can really do, for myself. I had already left, so the Ukraine business and the Chat Removal, pretty much sealed me coming back.

  3. Well the fact gaijin supported the 2014 Ukrainian attack, are you going to be surprised that they don’t now. As for their location, won’t matter . It’s a Russian company, and doesn’t matter we’re it’s based. The fact they are allowing the Z , and V insignias ingame now with tons of Russian players using them should be a look into what they actually think of Ukrainian sovereignty

  4. WarThunder appears to have taken pro-russian side and disabled chat solely to prevent pro-ukrainian comments. I am leaving.

  5. Hi,
    I was worried at first too, than i decided to try play further more.
    But first I installed firewall, and I was really surprised, how many IP adresses from Russia and Belarus is calling game launcher, can someone explain to me, why tf?
    We all know, that there is also hackers war included in current UA-RU war, and I find it wery uncomfortable and also suspicious.
    Thx for answer,
    M.

  6. This is garbage Gaijin propaganda. Gajiin is thoroughly Russian in spirit, in the way they operate/communicate and in workforce. Doesn't matter where else they have offices. American companies have offices all over the world. Does that make them Belgian?

  7. Unfortunately Russia have held Crimea since 2014 which also was a illegal invasion of Ukraine ?? I STAND WITH UKRAINE ?? and personally believe that Russia needs to give every part of Ukraine back to Ukraine and pi** off back to Russia also Russia wouldn't of been apart of the winning side in WW2 if it wasn't for Germany being attacked on several fronts and this invasion of Ukraine isn't about De-Nazifying Ukraine as that's a bloody lie seeing Neo-nazis groups are across the world is Russia going to attack every single country who have Neo-nazis groups in their country because I know they won't because they don't have the balls to do that they attacked Ukraine for several reasons because Ukraine was thinking about joining Nato and because the real reason for the invasion is because Putin and is Nazi Regime want to put the USSR back together plus they can't do that seeing there's 2 countries who was apart of Russia are in Nato

  8. Gaijin already had a lawsuit for supporting DPR and Ceo Owner and founder is Russian lives in Moscow the company is a Russian company. Gaijin changed HQ from Moscow to Hungary because of invasion of Ukrainian to escape the sanctions and tried covering it up. Money from gaijin is still going to end up going to Russia by taxes what will finance war effort and help the invasion.

  9. Can we please get clarity on where Gaijin as a company stands on the invasion of the Ukraine. There is now no neutral stance that a company can take. Companies can either denounce the invasion. Or stay quite and as so would be demonstrating Duplicity.

    1. Hi Graham, I have found a source whereas they have stated where they stand in terms of political issues, here's a direct quote from their Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin_Entertainment#:~:text=In%20response%20to%20the%20controversy,to%20stay%20out%20of%20it. This was published after a video in Donbas was recorded and WT were the sponsors of said video, sparking controversy.
      Here's a couple of tweets from the official twitter about recent events (invasion of Ukraine) too; https://i.redd.it/4bfkqq51s6k81.png

      So I guess they're staying neutral, who knows where they actually may stand as it won't be publicly voiced.

  10. and what about their russian servers ? how do they pay for it if payments to russia cannot be done

  11. The Guy that got threatened by Gaijooble to be banned for raising concerns about their unwillingness to silence BOTH sides and keep a game neutral. says:

    Headquarters in a Pro Putin Bootlicker Country totally frees you completely from having ties with Russia. Sure. Judging by how you respond to tanks with Invasion Symbols, namely Z and V symbols combined with Russian flags.. additional people spamming chat with "Z" and Russian hate speech.. which is not responding at all. Really shows you are totally not Pro Putin and totally against the war. (sarcasm) Whoever believes your bullshit didnt learn anything the past ten years. If Gaijin is good at anything, it´s ignoring, suppressing, controlling, lying and manipulation. Oh and twisting facts.

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