Users of Swedish-owned but Belarus-based online puzzle game take to Twitter after spate of ‘pro-russian’ answers
A popular mobile puzzle game has removed Russianthemed content after users raised questions over its use on social media.
Nonagram, which requires players to reveal a picture by solving number-based puzzles, has recently produced a string of Russia-themed answers including “Coat of arms of Russia”, as well as “Kremlin” – referencing the seat of the Russian government – and “The Motherland Calls”.
The game programmers, Easy Brain Team, are based in Minsk, Belarus, an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin. However, Swedish parent company Embracer Group has pledged $1 million (£760,000) to help the humanitarian effort in Ukraine, while its chief executive Lars Wingefors has matched that funding to specifically help employees affected by the crisis.
Now the company has revealed it has removed the “sensitive” content in its latest update, but insisted the answers had been part of the game “for years” and the tim
ing of the answers coming up during the Ukraine-russia conflict was “coincidence”.
One Scottish Twitter user has written: “So here’s a weird thing. I play a phone game called Nonagram, designed by @Easybrainteam who are part of @embracergroup. In the past couple of weeks, Every. Single. Answer. has been something Russian.”
The user said she had investigated the firm and found the developers were based in Belarus, but that it was owned by a company with its headquarters in Sweden.
She said: “So now I can’t decide – rogue pro-russian programmer doing their bit for the Russian war effort via the medium of super-pixelated game answers, or total coincidence, these were programmed well in advance and I just happen to have hit this point in the game as Russia goes to war?”
She added she had thought one answer, entitled “Cruiser Aurora”, bucked the Russiathemed trend, until she looked it up.
The user said: “I thought 'Cruiser Aurora' sounded nice and was bucking the trend, but turns out it’s a Russian warship, now a museum, in St Petersburg.”
Embracer Group has not responded to a request for comment.