The Google Play platform will block payments in paid applications from Russian developers. This means that users of such software products will not be able to benefit from in-game purchases and subscription upgrades. The changes will come into force on December 26, 2024.

The message that Google started sending to developers says the following: “indefinite” Payments for applications to developers whose payments were recorded in an account registered with a Russian bank were stopped. “This means that starting December 26, 2024, we will reject all attempts by users to purchase your paid subscriptions, make in-app purchases (including new subscriptions), and renew subscriptions through Google Play.”says the company’s message. It is also stated that this change will go into effect on December 26 at 12:00 PT, and developers will receive final payments by January 15.

As you may remember, in May 2022, Google banned developers in Russia from downloading and updating paid applications on Google Play. This meant that the Russian section of Google’s digital content store would not host paid apps and developers would not be able to monetize their products. In March of the same year, Google disabled the display of ads for Russian users and subsequently blocked the possibility of monetizing views on YouTube. In the summer of this year, the AdSense advertising service completely stopped its activities in Russia and disabled user accounts, which led to the complete blocking of the possibility of monetizing the content of Russian bloggers.