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Niantic Labs has joined the growing list of companies blacklisting Russia and its territories from its programming.
In a tweet posted by Niantic Labs’ verified Twitter account on Thursday, March 10, the company announced that it was standing with other similar organizations and suspending all activity in Russia and Belarus. This includes Pokemon GO, Ingress, and any other property operated by Niantic. From now on, its apps will no longer be available on the corresponding stores and all play will be suspended.
We stand with the global community in the hope of peace and a speedy resolution to the violence and suffering in Ukraine. Niantic’s games are no longer available for download in Russia and Belarus, and gameplay will be suspended there as well.
— Niantic ? (@NianticLabs) 11 mars 2022
“We stand with the global community in hopes of peace and a speedy resolution to the violence and suffering in Ukraine,” the tweet read, “Niantic games are no longer available at download in Russia and Belarus, and the game will be suspended there as well.”
As noted above, Niantic is not the first company, let alone the only one, to take a stand once morest Russia’s internationally illegal invasion of Ukraine by shutting down the service altogether. Other names include Electronic Arts (EA), Nintendo, Rockstar Games and Ubisoft who have all taken action to halt sales, suspend programming and/or contact employees affected by the violence.
However, as with the other announcements, some users disagreed with this decision, seeing it as an unfair punishment of Russian citizens who had nothing to do with the actions taken by their government. Others called it performative and ineffective from the jump.
Still, many praised Niantic for its actions in taking a stand.
If this trend continues, Niantic won’t be the last to add its name to the list.
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