Making An Impression

 

"[Mundfish has] an incredible team ... from ten countries including Poland, Ukraine, Australia, Georgia, Israel, Armenia, UAE, Serbia, and Cyprus [and the tenth?]."

"We apologize if using the vintage cartoon or music has caused hurt or insult. We will edit the parts in question." 

"Founded in 2017 by a team of four like-minded gaming enthusiasts, Mundfish is a video grame development studio headquartered in Cyprus. Mundfish is led by a talented global team focused on creating an original, captivating,  and unique gaming experience with their first title, 'Atomic Heart'."

"[We are]  pro-peace [and] against violence. Guys, we have noted the questions surrounding where we, at Mundfish, stand."

"We want to assure you that Mundfish is a developer and studio with a global team focused on an innovative game and is undeniably a pro-peace Organization  against violence against people. We do not comment on politics or religion. Rest assured, we are a global team focused on getting Atomic Heart into the hands of gamers everywhere."

"Our game and website DO NOT collect any information or data."

"The website's privacy statement is outdated and wrong, and should have been removed years ago. We have shut down the shop to assure our fans of the integrity of our studio and products. We apologize for any confusion on this matter."

Mundfish website and Twitter

As a propaganda vehicle, it is a diabolically clever device. Gaming is big. Big boys and little boys are addicted to it. Make it flash, make it pop with activity and firearms, lots of those. Some explosive devices wouldn't hurt, either. Remember the protagonists, the good guys versus the bad guys. And, in this instance, symbolism, lots of it. If the game itself is derivative of another, previous high-popularity game, that's deliberate; a tried-and-true strategy to grip peoples' imagination and  hook them on the action and the subliminal message, clumsy as it may be.

 

"We are now flying over the majestic Call of the Motherland monument -- erected in 1949 to mark the Soviet Union's victory in World War Two", a female's mellow voice intones as a statue looms through the clouds. An immense statue of a vengeful woman, sword held high in one hand, a gigantic atom cradled in the other. Below her there are monorails of a futuristic city, with suspension bridges and whirring drones. How does that suit the mood?

 

A still from the video game Atomic Heart.  Mundfish

 The statuesque symbol of victory stands 300 feet in height and as you pass it in your pixelated conveyance high in the sky above the Volga River you are deep in the world of Atomic Heart which seems to extol Soviet Russia as a socialist paradise with its triumphalist architecture.  Ukraine is not particularly thrilled with this novel conveyance of slurs against all that is Ukrainian. From the sexy female bots whose silver hair is braided in the traditional Ukrainian coiffe, to the many allusions of Ukraine as deficient in all aspects of its national identity.

 

Game developer Mundfish, based in Cyprus, won't tell you, but its chief executive worked previously at the Russian communication company Mail.RU. Funding reached Mundfish from GEM Capital, a Cyprus-based investment fund that a former chief executive of Russia's state-owned gas company Gazprom, established. The game itself is distributed in Russia by VK Play of the social media platform VKontakte owned by Gazprom.

 

Just incidentally Vladimir Kiriyenko, son of Vladimir Putin's deputy chief of staff Sergey Kiriyenko is president of VK Play. Mundfish was said to have been founded in Moscow before it moved its HQ to Cyprus in 2022. During a Moscow launch event for the game the downtown venue reached into the nostalgic past with signs reading "Glory to Soviet engineers", and "Comrade, join the society of tomorrow". 

 

Atomic Heart launched on the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin's formalizing the independence of 'separatist' regions of East Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk, then adding another few provinces for good measure.

Still from video   Mundfish

Mundfish, however, declares itself to be staunchly"pro-peace". Within the Mundfish organization there is one outstanding dissenter, Mick Gordon, who composed the game's soundtrack. "My motivations are solely to support the Ukrainian people affected by the conflict", he stated of his decision to donate his fee to Red Cross Australia's Ukraine Crisis Appeal.

 

According to Mundfish, Atomic Heart is not sharing player data with Kremlin authorities. It had been revealed that the company's Russian website included a clause informing users their data could be collected and sent to the Federal Security Service (FSB) the updated KGB. "Our game and website DO NOT collect any information or data", it insisted. 

 

What cannot be denied, evidently, is the presence of ample insults toward Ukraine integrated into the game. Ukrainian politicians have called for a universal boycott of the game. Sony and Microsoft have been contacted, with Ukraine seeking a ban on the game's sale of digital versions in Ukraine. 

 

Skilled gamers appear not to have been overly impressed with the game's lack of sophistication and juvenile dialogue. Patterning itself after the hugely successful BioShock, it missed its mark.

 

"We also urge limiting the distribution of this game in other countries due to its toxicity, potential data collection of users, and the potential use of money raised from game purchases to conduct a war against Ukraine."

Kyiv Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine