The ongoing war in Ukraine has stirred a movement across the world, with Western companies withdrawing their services from Russia to show their solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

For gaming giant Nintendo, however, the temporary suspension of its eShop services in Russia wasn’t deliberate.

Nintendo Suspends eShop Purchases in Russia

Russian customers have complained about not being able to make purchases on the Russian Nintendo eShop; the website has even been put on “maintenance mode” because of some issues with its payment processing partner.

In a statement on the website’s support page, Nintendo explained:

“Due to the fact that the payment service used in Nintendo eShop has suspended the processing of payments in rubles, Nintendo eShop in Russia is temporarily placed into maintenance mode. We apologize for any inconvenience caused. We will share updates as the situation develops.”

The issue was first reported on social networks by Nintendo Switch users who got Error Code 22813-0999 whenever they tried to access the Russian Nintendo eShop.

Later on, the problem was confirmed by Nintendo, saying that it was left with no choice but to temporarily suspend its operations due to issues with its third-party processor.

Some have speculated that this was a deliberate move on the company’s part after other gaming companies like CD Project Red, which suspended the sales of some of its games, and EA, which prevented players from both Russia and Ukraine from making purchases in the Origin storefront and app.

Tech giant Microsoft also suspended sales of all its products and services in Russia after Ukraine requested that the company ban all Russian players from its system.

The country also made the same request to Sony for its PlayStation network, but it has yet to respond, although it already pulled out the sale of Gran Turismo 7 in Russia, according to Eurogamer.

Many companies, including the Pokemon Company, have also pledged donations to different humanitarian efforts to help and support the people of Ukraine.

Lesson Learned for Businesses in Russia

With the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, businesses are slowly feeling the effects of different companies withdrawing their services. This is expected to continue until this conflict is resolved, thus causing more damage to the economies of both countries.

You cannot put more emphasis on the importance of finding high-risk merchant account providers that can guarantee you continuity of service regardless of the circumstances.

Businesses from other parts of the world can learn an important lesson from this situation if the suspension is indeed caused by its third-party payment processor.

Having a reliable payment processing partner can help you maintain operations and ensure that you can serve your customers continuously.

As we all continue to follow the events in Ukraine, we can only hope that the situation gets better so that not only lives can be saved but livelihoods as well, and businesses can resume operations, whether it’s in Russia or Ukraine.