Restoring sales to Russian customers

[mcdebugger]

Hi!

Tell me please if there are any plans to restore ability to buy Affinity / Serif products in Russia.

I don't understand why ordinary people are affected by sanctions – this goes just beyond my logic and my mental abilities. I can imagine that Affinity products could be used by press / mass-media in Russia for publishing but at least ability for buying the products like Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer for hobbyists and professional photographers, designers could be restored.

Also as far as I can see in European and US media the initial informational pressure dropped down, many people in Europe and US now understand better true reasons of the conflict and can make new logical conclusions and decisions themselves.

So. Maybe it's time to have a chance to try again?

Best regards

[AlainP]

Probably like ordinary people in Ukraine are affected by war and bombs... which goes beyond logic and mental abilities of many people on this planet.

[mcdebugger]

3 hours ago, AlainP said:

Probably like ordinary people in Ukraine are affected by war and bombs... which goes beyond logic and mental abilities of many people on this planet.

This is always very terrible. Any war on the planet is awful, but unfortunatelly they happen very often in many countries. As the mainkind we probably haven't grown yet to live in peace and friendship with each other. At least politics, corporations, governments.

I don't think we should discuss such a wide and deep topic on this platform, there are many for these tasks. My question here is just about relationships between one creative company and creative people that are part of its community. Thus I'd like to return to the original question.

Edited August 13, 2022 by mcdebugger

[MikeW]

As long as sanctions are in place, there legally isn't anything that Serif can do but adhere to them.

Hopefully the war will end sooner than later and the sanctions lifted so sales can be resumed to the Russian people. 

[Patrick Connor]

@mcdebugger

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums

Sorry but the decision to stop taking payments in Roubles/selling in Russia has the consequence of being generally unavailable to ordinary Russians.

16 hours ago, MikeW said:

As long as sanctions are in place, there legally isn't anything that Serif can do but adhere to them.

 

Not sure that's true MikeW. I think we've chosen to withdraw sales. Obviously we all hope the fighting stops.

Serif have no plans to restore sales in Russia. 

Serif have no plans to support a Russian language localisation of version 2 of the Affinity suite, as we will not be targeting that market.

[Alfred]

49 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

I think we've chosen to withdraw to show solidarity with Ukrainian people. That is true whether or not the fighting continues. Obviously we all hope it stops.

Serif have no plans to restore sales in Russia. Therefore Serif have no plans to support a Russian language localisation of version 2 of the Affinity suite, as we will not be targeting that market.

Is Russian going to be replaced with another language that uses Cyrillic script, such or Ukrainian or Bulgarian? Or will Serif perhaps take the opportunity to introduce support for another popularly requested language such as Polish or Czech?

[Patrick Connor]

3 hours ago, Alfred said:

Is Russian going to be replaced with another language ...?

Not that I am aware of 

[General Ripper]

I don't support any war.

It turns out that there are no Russian-speaking people outside of Russia, like in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Russian-speakers in France.. Germany (GDR), Kazahstan, Moldova, Armenia.. who have been living for a long time and they speak in Russian. I understand that perhaps there are some cultural complexes.

By your actions you confirm the words of Russian propaganda that Russian-speaking people are oppressed all over the world.


Russian language in the world, just look at the numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_distribution_of_Russian_speakers

[mcdebugger]

On 8/13/2022 at 8:37 PM, Patrick Connor said:

@mcdebugger

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums

Sorry but the decision to stop taking payments in Roubles/selling in Russia has the consequence of being generally unavailable to ordinary Russians.

 

Not sure that's true MikeW. I think we've chosen to withdraw sales. Obviously we all hope the fighting stops.

Serif have no plans to restore sales in Russia. 

Serif have no plans to support a Russian language localisation of version 2 of the Affinity suite, as we will not be targeting that market.

Thank you very much for your reply.

I totally understand and respect your decision. This breaks my heart and is very sad for me to hear but I think I'll live with it somehow. What's even more sad is that we are on the path to loose that progress in West-East relationships that we had for last 30+ years. And even more sad that ordinary people in all countries will have zero benefit from it... again 😥

Owners of mass-media do the job for their beneficiaries, demonising each other's side. I hope someday we'll hear each other. I hope someday these guys that escalate conflicts all around the world, fighting for resources, power and money will be just the past nightmare of our civilization.

I love my country. Like you, like most people in the world love theirs. I see this misunderstanding between people provoked by money/power-owners. That's why even understanding and knowing the reasons of such attitude to Russia and Russian people I just can't deal with such order of things.

I'm happy to be the part of Affinity community so I'd like to say thank you, Patrick, for the greetings.

Loving the people around the world

With best regards and wishes

Maksim Kachur

[tudor]

2 hours ago, mcdebugger said:

This breaks my heart and is very sad for me to hear but I think I'll live with it somehow. What's even more sad is that we are on the path to loose that progress in West-East relationships that we had for last 30+ years.

As it turned out, there was no progress at all.

I'm sure you're a nice guy and I sympathize with you. But you just can't benefit from everything the free world has to offer, while your leaders are wreaking havoc all over it. Only the people of Russia have the power to stop them. Do that and then we can be friends again.

[iuli]

It’s saddening to see a Russian coming here and complaining not that their compatriots are committing genocide and devastating war crimes in a illegal war (hence the ban of Affinity in Russia), but to complain that they do not get to live their lives like nothing really happens in Ukraine.

Also, hats off to Serif (and others like them) for stepping up and standing to what’s right in a world that lost its mind (and common sense) completely. 

Kind regards

Edited August 20, 2022 by iuli
Edit - spelling

[Patrick Connor]

4 hours ago, tudor said:

But you just can't benefit from everything the free world has to offer, while your leaders are wreaking havoc all over it. Only the people of Russia have the power to stop them. Do that and then we can be friends again.

And

30 minutes ago, iuli said:

It’s saddening to see a Russian coming here and complaining not that their compatriots are committing genocide and devastating war crimes in a illegal war (hence the ban of Affinity in Russia), but to complain that they do not get to live their lives like nothing really happens in Ukraine.

This is inappropriate. Serif customer come here to talk about Affinity software. There is no obligation to talk about anything else and indeed talk of politics is not allowed under the guidelines. Stop telling others how they're meant to react to Serif's decision 

 

[tudor]

1 hour ago, Patrick Connor said:

This is inappropriate. Serif customer come here to talk about Affinity software. There is no obligation to talk about anything else and indeed talk of politics is not allowed under the guidelines. Stop telling others how they're meant to react to Serif's decision 

Sorry for talking about politics here, but Serif’s decision to stop sales in Russia was a political one. The man deserved to know why he’s banned. Over and out.

[mcdebugger]

Thanks everyone for replying.

I think the original question was answered so maybe it'd be better to close the topic.

For the people that was making advices I just want to point out that the life and world is not black and white. I really excited watching for professionals around the world, I have friends in many countries all over the world. Also just to point out I'm Ukrainian by father (my father was born in Ukraine and I used to live in Ukraine 1/4 of my childhood). I love Ukraine as much as I love Russia. I study reasons of this conflict for more than 10 years, I was watching it with my eyes more than you think, I saw how it escalated, saw how it did grow. My grandmother lives in Ukraine, 4 years ago my grandfather from Ukraine passed away, many relatives (cousins, uncles), friends live in Ukraine, some of my cousins are now at war from Ukrainian side and some of my friends are from Russian side.

I didn't want to tell you anything about it because I started topic for another reason... But these comments... Many of commenters don't understand what really is happening here! This is a tragedy for all our people regardless of which side of the border one is on. So before judging please... at least please check out the history.

Not to offend anyone. Just... Just please know that we are suffering from this conflict alltogether. Russia and Ukraine for many Russians and Ukrainians are united. Some of us even don't see the difference, just artificial borders made someday by the politics.

I wish everyone to live in peace and stay safe. I'm grateful for your responses.

With love

[Alfred]

13 hours ago, tudor said:

Sorry for talking about politics here, but Serif’s decision to stop sales in Russia was a political one. The man deserved to know why he’s banned. Over and out.

I don’t think any contributors to this thread have been banned, but Serif’s decision was very clearly a political decision.

[mcdebugger]

11 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I don’t think any contributors to this thread have been banned, but Serif’s decision was very clearly a political decision.

Probably. But they have the right to it. As company they have their own vision. I understand that.

But the rules of the forum... are the rules. They are designed to help people to have comfortable communication and I respect that too.

Maybe it was wrong to start such not easy topic but at least I have official answer from Serif so I have more information to take in account in my future decisions.

[mcdebugger]

I also have a technical question.

I purchased Affinity Photo in App Store for Mac and it's now unavaliable in the App Store in Russia.

If I'll decide to reinstall my OS will it work if I'll just backup entire application from /Applications folder. Should I backup some data from "Application Support", "Caches", "Preferences" folders, etc?

[Patrick Connor]

Even though it cannot be bought from new in Russia, you can redownload Affinity Photo from the app store because you purchased it, so no need to backup Affinity in applications folder.

Please can you make a new post in questions forum about what personal files to backup specifically.

[mcdebugger]

1 hour ago, Patrick Connor said:

Even though it cannot be bought from new in Russia, you can redownload Affinity Photo from the app store because you purchased it, so no need to backup Affinity in applications folder.

Please can you make a new post in questions forum about what personal files to backup specifically.

The problem is that I can't open app's page in Mac App Store even by direct link. It says that app isn't avaliable at my region. Not to mention trying to find it in App Store's search 😔 So I doubt that I can install it from Mac App Store.

UPD: I found it in purchases section. I think it could be installed from that place. Thank you for the tip.

[Patrick Connor]

I have hidden the 2 recent posts about the current political situation 

[mcdebugger]

11 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

I have hidden the 2 recent posts about the current political situation 

Patrick, thank you!

My original question and even related technical question was answered. I don't think we can add something new to it.

So I'm not against closing this topic if it's appropriate. To not fill the debate and to not escalate the situation.

Will be waiting for new announcements from Serif on topic.

Thanks everyone for your replies, for your support and for sharing your opinion.

[Patrick Connor]

This thread is likely to be replied to in the future by people who don't necessarily read all of it, so to avoid unnecessary problems moderating it, I will lock this thread.