Thanks Putin
Its actually the western world in a way. It is pretty obvious the complete drop in gas prices is a way to destroy russian economy, as they rely a lot on gas for their income. It is a pretty good cold war tactic, but could have its own consequences. As, when a country finds economic collapse, they rely on war and military to fix their economy. Heck, it worked for the US...during war-time the US saw a HUGE boost in economy. During peace, economies tend to collapse.
Guess its human nature in a way.
In any case, there are still places to buy cheap games without dealing with shady key selling sites (though guess you can risk doing that.)
Sort of, Putin wanted a big escalation to create patriotic press etc. the hash tag "Crimea is ours" #Крымнаш and all that were public signs that his strategy was working.
Obama's sanctions came in slow, gradually. They dispersed the energy Putin needed. Then OPEC decided that it would screw US and Russia both: undercut all the high cost extractions in the US (fracking) and let the oil-reliant ruble go into free fall. A loss for Americans invested in fracking, but a disaster for all Russians.
Ultimately Putin may not be able to afford war now, so he might have to peacefully surrender parts of Ukraine taken by the "rebels". What happens to Crimea remains a mystery
Well, I don't want to go into a huge politic debate. Especially since this isn't even the forum for it to begin with. Nor even the topic which is about steam sales. But yeah, it could be he surrenders his "winnings". Likely though, as it has happened many times in history...and not to say its 100% to happen or anything. But when a country/kingdom or whatever sees collapse of some kind....war tends to be the way to solving it. There is always money to be put into war industry, and sees a "temporary" bubble in the economy. Heck, the US was (still is in some ways) almost entirely built on the war industry. I think the economy would have been far worse in the US if there was no war. Whether one agrees with the philosophy of war or not (I personally find that it would be better to work together and expand into space), but as of now, that be near impossible with too many religions (that hate space technology or any technology) and too many cultures).
The price of religious freedom and all the cultures is huge groups of people who hate each other.
With that said...it isn't entirely unlikely that Putin won't go desperate and go to war. It would be one strategy he "could" choose to create an economic bubble. It would probably be the most effective, since history as shown countries (like the US) go into an economic boom during wartime as I have said before. Of course, the losing country tends to be well...the losing country. So it definitely isn't a 100% strategy.
In the end, I don't think anyone REALLY wants to go to war. But, when you find your country undersiege (no matter the country) one does tend to want to defend it.
If more games did humans accurately, they'd (we) would actually be really barbaric. Other species in the game would hate them (us) and humans would conquer and destroy planets and shoot down any alien that come to their planets. And like I said. humans have too many cultures and religions so a human empire (whether fantasy/sci-fi) would be in little wars with each other all over the place, so not really a united empire at all. We have technology, but we haven't evolved as an actual species barely at all.