Video games in Russia

[1] Despite piracy being widespread in the Russian gaming industry,[2] by 2019, the market more than doubled over the course of five years to the worth of over $2 billion.

[3] In 2001, Russia became the first country in the world to officially recognize competitive video gaming as a sport.

[4] The history of gaming in Russia began in the early 1980s in the Soviet Union, when various personal computers such as the Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum 48/128 were brought to the country from the United States, Europe, Japan, and China.

[5] At the same time, a local brand, Electronika, released a series of portable game consoles which were mostly clones of Nintendo products.

[8][9] The Dendy, a Taiwanese hardware clone of the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System, was released for the Russian market in 1992.