The official IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles X, formerly Twitter, account posted a message in response to a post by United States Senator Lindsey Graham that has caused community uproar. Its not the kind of message that you expect to see from an official account. Here’s what we’ve seen.
Update: September 29, 2023 at 4:38 pm
Update: September 29, 2023 at 10:40 pm
Comments and controversy
Some stories travel around the flight sim community out of excitement, some of out controversy but few fan the flames like what happened today. A post by United States Senator Lindsey Graham was replied to by the official @il2bos X/Twitter account with the words “Good, now #DefundUkraine.” The message was immediately picked up by community members garnering several replies directly on X/Twitter and then it spread from there to most IL-2 community discords, the r/hoggit group and beyond.
So far there has been only a limited official response. The original message has been deleted and a reply to one post on X/Twitter wrote the following:
The account also appears to have developed a recent history of liking non-flight sim related political topics over the last several weeks. If unauthorized access truly has taken place, the activities have been going on for quite some time now and gone undetected by the account owners.
Reputation
The reputational damage caused by this message seem likely to cause reverberations for quite some time. Some community members reporting that they were uninstalling their IL-2 Great Battles software, others posting that they regret recent purchases, while others still are keen to hear a more definitive apology before deciding their course of action.
This kind of event can cause tremendous damage and I suspect that even a strong rebuff at this point will struggle to undo this. Community relations have been been more tenuous over the last couple of years and this incident, accident or intentional, unauthorized or sanctioned, will only further inflame an already difficult situation.
It is currently the middle of the night Moscow time so its reasonable to expect a further response may come tomorrow.
I’m leaving the comments section on this one open, however, keep the messaging polite and focused on the immediate subject at hand.
Update: Apology issued
About 24-hours after the initial incident, 1CGS has issued the following message through the same X/Twitter account that caused the controversy yesterday. Here’s the message:
Update: Comments
Things have begun to get heated in the comments area so I’m going to disable any further commenting. Folks have weighed in on the subject and for now I think we can leave it at that.
Stormbirds 
44 responses to “IL-2 X/Twitter post causes community uproar (updated)”
Honestly, companies should stay out of politics. And if a company is trying to stay out of politics, we should let them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You know me. I’d rather be posting about content and future cool things. This was too big and spread too fast not to provide an overview as it’s definitely entered into the realm of news rather than the usual forum disagreement.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You never fail to be well spoken.
Given the way IL2 has been in the last while, who would be surprised by this?
LikeLiked by 2 people
TBH I don’t mind a coherent political statement, even if I don’t agree with it, as long as all the workers in a company are behind it. Pretending to live in an apolitical bubble is just as dangerous as going all out partisan hack and in my experience the former likely leads to the latter eventually.
The current though is not much of a statement and I seriously doubt whoever typed it out actually did so after consulting with their colleagues.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I think people are overreacting. I feel bad for whoever forgot which X account they were logged in on, and it does come at a really bad time for IL-2, but the post really doesn’t bother me. It bothers me more how we all have to have a Borg-like consensus on every political issue now. Some guy at a Russian company privately isn’t supportive of a country that’s at war with Russia? So what?
LikeLiked by 5 people
We live in a childlish Disney-like World full of Good Princesses, White Knights and of course Bad Witches.
There are only people values, no national interests. There is only black and whites, good ones and baddies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And of course History started yesterday, there was nothing before that time and even it was something we happily forgot it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
???
I don’t. Hope you are not trying to bring a discourse on Ukraine into this forum. There are aplenty others that you could frequent.
LikeLike
I knew this was going to happen, I was hoping it wouldn’t and I didn’t expect it of IL2, but the fact that the sims I ‘fly’ are based in an imperialist, even fascist society was bound to cause problems. And No. This is not a case of criticism of ‘a country that’s at war with Russia’. Russia has clearly stated they are at war with the west, make constant threats and would attack the civilised world if we didn’t have nukes. I really, really want this part of my life, sim flying, to be compartmented from the BS that’s going on but it appears I can’t do that. I’m trying to decide if uninstalling means anything. I’m certainly not buying FCIII now, which I’ve been mulling over. Let’s see what they say.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I should clarify ‘I knew this was going to happen’ is a turn of phrase. Of course I didn’t, what I meant was I was dreading that it might. As you were.
LikeLike
I probably follow the war in Ukraine much more closely than most flight sim enthusiasts. I can appreciate that it is entirely natural, and reasonable for guys in Moscow to be patriotic to their motherland. Guys in Moscow have the luxury of being clueless, most Russian troops and casualties come from rural communities. Guys in Moscow don’t enjoy the Western luxury of expressing dissent if they hold any anti-war views, but then again I’m not sure they actually have anti-war views. Bottom line: IMO this is a lose-lose situation for the IL-2 GB team, and I’m okay with that. My years of buying every module and gifting multiple copies ended with the invasion. [Disclaimer: When I was a Cold War fighter pilot I didn’t hate Russians or Warsaw Pact nations but I sure as hell trained to “beat their d*ck in the dirt” if we ever went to war. I’m hoping Ukraine continues to prove that Russia has the second-best military in Ukraine.] Colin my friend, if my post makes you uncomfortable or exceeds your sense of decorum I understand if you edit/delete it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
that single asterisk made all the difference XD
LikeLike
Well said busdriver. Always appreciate your information and perspective!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My day job is to read and assess this every day (but, alas, with no actual F-16 to fly). Man, but it gets depressing. The off-ramp remains elusive. I have my views on this, but I would not bet the house on how it unfolds. Still,e got the Tempest to enjoy.
Oh, and Cz, WTF with F-35s, that was a stupid decision!
Back on topic, I hope that was just a weird glitch and we can all roll as normal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I personally always wondered what the IL-2 Devs felt about the “special operation”. Unfortunately know we know. I don’t believe for a sec that this reply was unintentially. If that would have been (like “account hacked”) there would be an immediate statement that set things right. I don’t think I care anymore about whatever they do next … I still had one final collector plane to buy that I now surely … will never ever even consider !
I now even wonder about DCS Devs views on this issue.
So Jason’s “Combat Pilot: … please become a reality asap !
LikeLiked by 1 person
I doubt the comment was from a member of the dev team in Moscow. Why would someone from Russia comment under a post of Lindsey Graham?
In my experience Moscows middle class and especially people in the tech sector try everything to ignore the war, as long as it doesn’t affect them personally.
LikeLike
When this blew up last night it was past midnight in Moscow so there’s some leeway for a statement to still be made. Will one be forthcoming? I don’t know of course but for simple geographical reasons there may still be time.
Jason did a really good interview with Enigma that came out yesterday. Worth a listen. It will be a few years before that product becomes a full reality but I’m hoping to see a vibrant combat flight sim community.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This article doesn’t quite cover the full story of the ‘tweets’ that were liked by this account. If you cross reference the posts made by LukeFF on Combat Mission forums and see other posts liked (Check reddit for that), you can quickly understand that these are HIS opinions and it was HIM who posted this reply, most likely by mistake, but what does that change really? Also, suspiciously enough, the account never had a history of liking anti-vaccine, anti-LGBT and anti-Ukrainian posts (Or really anything that is not related to their nieche) prior to June 8th of June, a week later from the day when Luke took over the control of the twitter account from wardog.
At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself if you’re comfortable with supporting a company that entrusts a person who’s clearly a bigot to handle their community. And before the freedom speech warriors attack me for critiquing a man for ‘having opinions’, the moment you let your preferences or ideas known, you open yourself up to having those ideas challenged, called out for or outright dissagreed with. That is the freedom of speech and expression, it goes both ways. If Luke is convinced that statements of the Russian MOD about ‘terrorist’ attacks Ukraine performs against legitimate military targets deserve a like from the official IL2 Twitter acount no less, I’m convinced that their team doesn’t deserve my money. Simple as.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“And before the freedom speech warriors attack me for critiquing a man for ‘having opinions’, the moment you let your preferences or ideas known, you open yourself up to having those ideas challenged, called out for or outright dissagreed with. ”
Of course, but it is not the case unfortunatelly. The opinions are not discussed or argued, they are being activelly silenced and owners of the opinion are being removed from the media like Twitter or Facebook.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did read about that part of the story but decided not to write about it because it’s more conjecture than I was comfortable publishing. Certainly there does seem to have been a recent change in activity on that account which I did reference.
You, like many, are reconsidering where their gaming dollars are being spent which is more than fair. Thanks for the comment.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It may be me overthinking things as usual but it does make me wonder if Jason’s timely departure had more to it than was stated at the time…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Always more to the story of course.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It did
LikeLike
Apparently someone forgot that we wasn’t locked in with his privat X/twitter account. I guess the team will need a new community manager.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Keep in mind Lindsey Graham admitted the US is using Ukraine as cannon fodder against Russia, claiming “its the best investment we ever made”
He has also multiple times called for our president’s assassination, dissolution of Russia as a state, etc.
So it should come of no surprise we Russians are not highly fond of him.
That being said, we here in the flight sim and video game community, play to have fun and escape the dystopia that is is modern world as it is. Stop bringing politics, geopolitics, and woke agenda, etc into games – my opinion.
LikeLike
I’m no fan of Lindsey Graham by any stretch of the imagination. However, his observation that Ukraine’s defense is in our (USA’s and NATO’s) best interest is correct in my opinion. By the same token, Western intelligence and punditry have significantly overestimated Russia’s offensive military capability. And we have significantly underestimated the Russian capacity for cruelty to their “brother” Ukrainians.
You are correct that Graham called for somebody in Putin’s inner circle to assassinate him to stop Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. That is not Biden’s or America’s policy. Western non-partisan analysis posits that assassinating Putin would simply place another like-minded [insert the pejorative of your choice here] in power.
Graham has not explicitly called for the dissolution of the Russian state. However, he has been vocal about his stance on Russia’s actions. He applauded the passage of a resolution that views the actions of the Russian government, under Putin, as sponsoring acts of terrorism. He has called for America to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. In response to the war in Ukraine, he suggested that stiff economic sanctions should be imposed on Russia. It’s important to note that these actions and statements do not equate to calling for the dissolution of the Russian state.
You actually made me chuckle with your inclusion of “woke agenda.” What exactly does that mean to a Russian? Americans who invoke that phrase are unable to articulate its meaning.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s all the developers can do to avoid being sent to the front and fed into the meat grinder.
As I said, Il2 is cooked. They cannot produce a sim out of Russia that is even vaguely true to accurately representing western equipment and theatres.
LikeLike
Shall we all have a virtual group hug with Shamrock for generally just being a righteous dude?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Amen brother!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Let me try again. Amen, brother!
LikeLiked by 2 people
It was already a difficult topic before that X-Post. The company is located in an aggressive country what is responsible for ugly war crimes that I thought would never happen again in Europe. There is a creator/customer relationship and it was good, more like a friendship. And this didn’t have to change automatically because their criminal government. It was more a question don’t support the Russian state by taxes. I compensated that with donations to the Ukraine armed forces. Also it’s difficult just say good bye because I am part of an online squad and a big flying community that spend a lot of their Leisure time in this Sim with passion. But for me that post was a hit into that fragile building. It would childish uninstall already payed content. But a Bird TWITTERED to me there is a reason don’t invest any money into a future project which is rumored to be in the works right now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did the world stop dealing with the United States after their criminal war in Iraq? Did the world stop dealing with the UK, and France after their criminal war against Libya? Did the world boycott the west after they literally supported T-organizations to try (and fail) to overthrow a government they did not like?
The question in rhetorical.
Let me remind you the majority of us (Russians) are NOT on your side in the Ukraine issue.
Really wish people would stop bringing nationalism and politics into gaming
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was hoping Stormbirds would react to this and wasn’t disappointed. Clearly the community manager has something to explain, I don’t think the devs will touch this subject even with a long stick. This of course only makes thing worse, because reading player comments on discord, reddit etc. clearly shows that there are A LOT of players, who have decided not to purchase any new content until them russians are kicked out of Ukraine, me included. Even with the new module being Karelia Front.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Christ. Read the room and give your head a wobble. The reason that you (Russia- the 2nd most powerful army in Ukraine) are having to go begging to North Korea(!) for aid is precisely because most of the rest of the world believes in objective reality, and will not stand for genocidal aggression. Your whataboutery means absolutely naff all. 1c lost a good 3rd of their reliable Western customers in Feb ’22. They just lost another big chunk. You don’t have to like us, but if we don’t keep buying your product, looks like you might be on a fast track to prove the moral superiority of Mother Russia on the front lines, comrade. I would wish you good luck but that would be disengenuous
LikeLiked by 2 people
Honestly, it seems like a hack or, as they say, unauthorized use of the account. I have seen these things many times on YouTube, where channels that I follow on a certain topic suddenly start showing things about politics and garbage like that. Although it will be better to wait for the official statement from IL-2.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As an American, it makes ABSOLUTELY no difference to me (i.e. Russia/Ukraine war-related posted comment) regarding my allegiance and commitment to Il-2 GB products (I’ve bought pretty much all Il-2 modules and offerings – and will continue to do so). I never bought into the: (Ukraine == good, Russia == bad) narrative – knowing that the conflict is IMMENSELY more complicated and nuanced than the MSM whores would have the naive public believe.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nothing nuanced at all about rape, genocide, or mass child abduction. I’ll loan you my tee shirt
https://www.lifeisgood.com/men/all-tee-shirts/mens-stand-with-ukraine-short-sleeve–tee-UMSSCNG11980.html?dwvar_UMSSCNG11980_color=DRKSB
Want to get caught up on the 411? Nothing MSM or slutty about this.
https://www.iswresearch.org/search/label/Ukraine
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/regions-and-country-groups/ukraine
LikeLiked by 2 people
IL2 players numbers are super low on Steam. Do most people play via Website version?
LikeLike
Hi Chris. I have no idea what the ratio is between Steam and web bought. A lot of us, myself included, did buy through the webstore and so won’t show on the Steam player count.
LikeLike
I started on Steam, but moved to the native version after I had some problems and also discovered that planes are often available a lot later on Steam. I believe the discounts are better on the native site as well, but I may be wrong there. Put it this way, if you play IL2 a lot, as I do, the Steam version feels restricted. I believe this is deliberate policy, as Steam take their cut, so I would assume a lot, maybe most, don’t go through Steam.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The subject matter of combat flight simulation is inherently political. There is no way to divorce our demands for “realism” and “historical accuracy” from the politics that fuel the wars and death and pain that the subject matter of our games simulate.
I think that as consumers of these products we are being dishonest by suggesting we can have realistic aircraft on realistic maps to deliver realistic munitions to destroy realistic targets without “politics”.
I think it would be more responsible of our community, both consumers and developers, to acknowledge that these games are political in a very direct sense, instead of pretending otherwise.
LikeLiked by 4 people
All you really need to know at this stage (Post appology) is that their community manager (LukeFF) is heavily censoring and cracking down on any critique on the platforms they control and are freely and permanently banning people on Steam Discussion boards in clear violation of the community guidelines.
The question of why there’s a four month long backlog of the account ‘liking’ homophobic, anti-vaccine and anti-Ukrainian posts has also not been adressed in the slightest and if anything, they pretend like that didn’t take place at all to this very moment.
If you’re fine with supporting a developer who employs people like that to ‘manage’ or really, silence and censor their customers at the first point of convenience, keep supporting them financially, there’s still at least a hundred BF109 variants they haven’t made that could be sold for 20 bucks a pop.
LikeLiked by 2 people
They have lost my support, from what I know from Russians that escaped is that they are all brainwashed!
LikeLiked by 3 people
[…] couple of weeks for the IL-2 series with the announcement of a new Team Fusion Cliffs of Dover DLC, a controversy that swept the community, ongoing documentary releases, there’s word on when we’ll hear about the next title in […]
LikeLike