Russia has come under intense sanctions from around the world following its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Kicked from the international banking network and with accounts frozen at foreign exchanges, Russia is increasingly finding itself an international pariah.
It’s also having a terrible effect on the Russian ruble, which has lost over 30% of its value in recent days. And strangely enough, the collapse of the Russian economy is also having an effect on the virtual world.
Escape from Tarkov is a first-person shooter from Russian developer Battlestate Games where you play as a military contractor fighting in the fictional Norvisnk region. An extensive in-game economy allows players to sell and trade whatever gear they find, using in-game analogs to the ruble, euro, dollar, and even Bitcoins.
And as the real-world Russian ruble sinks, so too does the in-game version in Escape from Tarkov. As The Loadout reports, Escape from Tarkov’s ruble has lost almost as much value as the real-world equivalent, leading to spiking prices and players doing whatever they can to trade in alternate currencies.
Russian weapons on the in-game flea market, such as the AKS-74UB and the AK-74M, have fallen in price by 37% and 21%, respectively. Meanwhile, the value of alternate currencies has skyrocketed as players try to trade in Euros and dollars. The in-game value of Bitcoins has also increased by as much as 31%.
This sudden economic shift has had a devastating effect on new players who haven’t found significant quantities of alternate currencies. Meanwhile, veteran players that have their own in-game Bitcoin farms are seeing their fortunes balloon practically overnight.
Don’t expect Battlestate Games to step in and correct the situation. As The Loadout notes, Battlestate has only ever addressed an in-game currency crisis once before when Bitcoin values were skyrocketing. So far, the crashing ruble hasn’t warranted notice, but if things get much worse, that might change.
And they very well might. Russia has been cut off from receiving funds from YouTube, Twitch, and Steam, social media sites are blocked, and even chip manufacturers aren’t shipping silicon to Russia for fear it might be used in its war with Ukraine.