They probably don't want to be shunned or worse by their friends/"friends" on social media or elsewhere. If that's the case and it were me, i'd stick to my stance regardless of what others said/thought. And if they insulted & shunned me for doing so....well I guess it might be time to find a few new friends.

(sidenote: a good number these days, generally speaking, seem to worry a bit too much about how they're perceived by a bunch of randos on social media that they hardly know)

I'm rather afraid that when I'm back in the morning I will find the thread hopelessly ruined by people engaging with QueenAdrian's nonsensical twitter-esqu virtue signaling.

Nah, I'm sure it will go great.

Ouch.

The social media cancel culture mob is scary. It is a faceless hateful group from Orwell's nightmares.
Freedom of speech is dead. Calling out misdeeds that conform with this oppressive Zeitgeist is dangerous.
Everyone can trample on your face and have 2 minutes of hate on social media and feel "woke" about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvGmOZ5T6_Y

CDPR is a terrible company that hates everything about you except your money. GOG will not provide decent customer service because they do not want to serve you, their customers, only themselves.

And one that acts like it's morally just and not hateful at all.

Sidenote: "Oddly enough", GOG just approved the release of a game called Orwell's Animal Farm.
(also last year they released a "protest" sim, and a co-vid sim....seems like GOG is ok with current events if they can profit from them and it won't potentially cut them out of any national market....like it might've had they released Devotion)

Is it? So, how often have you been killed for expressing your opinion? How often have you been in jail for speaking your mind?

A little reminder here: Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you won't get attacked for expressing your opinion. Quite the opposite. It means that anyone may call you out on your bullshit if they think what you say is bullshit. Freedom of speech just means that there will be no legal repercussions for you expressing your opinion. Not that no one is allowed to express an opinion that differs from yours.

It is very interesting that very often those groups that cry loudest about their 'freedom of speech' being violated really mean to restrict the freedom of speech of all others. Your complaint is a perfect example. You complain that freedom of speech is dead and in the very same paragraph also complain about others using their freedom of speech to 'trample on your face'. So what you really complain about is, that freedom of speech ISN'T dead yet for anyone that doesn't like your opinion.

If you really want the internet that you hang out in to be a safe space for your opinion, where you don't get attacked for your pro-CCP stance, you should move into an appropriate bubble. Just move to China. There the internet is much more regulated, there is no hate-speech against the government and you can praise the CCP as much as you like without anyone disagreeing with you. Brave new world indeed!

Hmmm... iirc you were outraged because of CP2077 and when the community did not tell you what you wanted to hear you attacked the community and blamed them alongside with GOG even after they explained several flaws in your logic and quotes. You are registered since 11/2020 and think you already know much about the GOG community? Makes me wonder if you ever had the pleasure to talk with some people on Steam. GOG community is pretty descent - like every community there will always be a few that are not that great but every longtime GOGer know those by now. The core of the community is trying to help and be friendly. So speaking of "unfair treatment" - maybe you should think about the question if you don't treat the community unfair as well.

Adding here: Even if it (or for those) is about 'Devotion' that doesnt mean its about CCP or China. For me the issue isnt that (or whether) China or CCP are bad or good. Its about GOG self-censoring and thus also promoting self-censorship for game makers(*). What the exact source of this is (CCP sheep, Donald Duck or whatever(**)) isnt the point. The self-censorship is the point. GOG is for selling games and not for promoting (good or bad) politics. And (self- here) censorship interfers with that.

(*) Anybody interested in making a game using the Winnie (as a parody) now knows that they cant sell on GOG => strong disincentive to making that game in the first place. Thus self-censorship if they then dont make it because of that.

(**) Edit: Not wanting to mislead - the IMO most likely (indirect) source are CCP officials and not CCP sheep.

The so-called "Web 3.0" (see Ethereum etc) may do away with the actual canceling power of cancel culture. So I think its too early to bury the dying or dead body of 'freedom of speech' yet.

Well, it looks like the fake gamers on Twitter got a protester suspended. Make sure to hit the report button in return!

I understand that you have an emotional need to rationalize the amount of time and money you have spent here but that doesn't change the facts. Just like China is prospering while Europe and the USA are declining. I will trust the evidence my eyes and ears provide, not your petty attempts at hypernormalization. Some have told me that they respect CDPR for lying to them because they thought this company was entitled to such practices due to a pandemic that every other company around here is in, too. I have seen enough of this community to call out its insanity.

I guess this is adressed to me and the quote was just missed ....
You know nothing about this community and I am pretty sure that your short experience with one game and one theme only simply won't tell you much about this community. But since you already stated that GOG will never again get money from you AND you also stated that you hate this community to the core ... why on earth are you still here? If I would be amongst a community I despite I surely would not invest my precious time in telling them how terrible they are - I simply would move on. But maybe you need this ... I can't understand it but maybe that's just how it is. So go ahead and call others terrible only because you had some bad experience with one game and one request if you really think that this is validated.

But one last thing: CDPR never lied to you. They offered you a refund and in the end you got what you wanted. Just like many others already told you - the only "problem" is that it took a bit and they never have promised you to be fast. Yes, GOG right now is REALLY slow and unresponsive and that is something that should be criticised. But again, no lie involved here.

[Part 2/3, split up because it was too long for one post, but there was no error message about length.]
It’s pretty obvious that what really happened is that perhaps GOG was threatened with being blocked in China if they released the game. Whether the threat came from the Chinese government, or was a veiled one from anonymous messages, only GOG knows. There may be other elements involved. They were probably also told that if they revealed any of this, they would also be blocked. Someone (or someones) high up in GOG made the decision to go along with it, and cancel the game. They also decided not to tell the truth about their reasons, so put up a disingenuous announcement. They knew that questions would be asked, since it is so obviously fishy, so they also stated that they would not respond to any questions about it, and made sure all their staff who deal with the public (support, social media etc) were told not to comment or respond to any mention of Devotion, and to hope it all just went away.

The point is (if this supposition is even partway correct – which GOG refuse to comment on, so it’s all we have): as every person and company does, they’d been presented with a choice. On the one hand was sticking to your principles, behaving ethically, being honest, but accepting that you would probably make less profit. So they could have gone ahead and released the game (which, just to be clear, is not illegal, and the current version hasn’t got the secret Easter Egg/joke that upset some people). They could have also made a statement about the covert pressure they were under not to release it: which would help to reveal the behind-the-scenes attempt to censor something in countries where there is nothing to censor. The end result might well be being blocked from China, but that would mean LESS potential money, not NO money. A business in the rest of the world can still make huge profit. But, instead, GOG chose to bow down to the covert threat. They cancelled the game’s release. They kept the real reasons secret. They made a disingenuous statement which is mildly insulting to their supporters. And they kept silent about the issue after that.

I tried asking GOG about this. I raised it in their forum. Before long, they threatened to close my account if I “broke community guidelines” again (presumably removing access to all the games I’ve bought, without any form of refund or compensation). No doubt they sent the same threat to others, to try and stop people asking questions. I asked on social media. They blocked me on Twitter. Even if I wanted to, there’s no way I could share links to their games or sales on that platform any more. I emailed their support, asking about this. They sent a confusing email, but it seemed that they had already marked it as solved without answering, and when I queries that, there was silence. I tried again a few weeks later and the same thing happened.

In itself, that behaviour – burying their head in the sand and ignoring customers – is irritating. But it also exposes a definite lie. Their website has a specific promise at https://www.gog.com/about_gog under their “Customer-first approach” (I suspect they will remove this in the near future):

“Direct contact with GOG Team. Have a question, need help or you just want to talk about great PC games? Reach out on GOG forums, tweet at us or drop us a message on Facebook, and we'll get back to you.”

They portray themselves as helpful and friendly, but they go further: they state that they’ll respond via those channels. And that is a lie, because they have ignored thousands of messages in all those places. They have responded to other comments, unrelated to Devotion; but on that topic, dead silence. The staff clearly have orders not to respond, whatever their personal feelings, whatever the truth, whatever the policy on the website says. That makes a lie of the GOG statement, a lie to all their customers. The implication of friendliness and trustworthiness is actually no different from the false promise from any big company that puts increased profits before ethics. And the sadness is that the decision is probably made by people higher up in the company who never have to deal with the public, who don’t follow the threads and what is said, who don’t bother with comments from customers, who aren’t even directly reachable. Everything is filtered through support staff, and once they have been told to ignore something, it disappears under the carpet forever.

That is not treating customers with respect. It’s a lousy attitude. It’s disappointing when people have developed loyalty, because they had believed they knew what the company stood for, and that it was something good.

And this is why I am so bothered by it. I didn’t see myself solely as a customer in a financial transaction. I saw myself as involved with one of the good guys, with a movement. To see it play out like this has been rather depressing. From a company like Steam, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Blizzard or whatever, I would not have been surprised. To see it from GOG is kind of heart-breaking.

Every single day I hoped GOG would see sense. There was a way back. They could apologise to their customers. They could release the game. They could tell the truth. They could stick to their principles. Every day when we get up we have similar choices in our lives as individuals: to be better people, or worse people. To go for the job that pays more, working for a company we know is bad, or to go for the lower-paid job with an ethical organisation. To stick to our principles, whatever they are (fidelity, honesty, faithfulness etc) or to sidestep them for some material benefit or pleasure. Yes, being less ethical may well provide material rewards, but don’t expect to be respected for making that choice. And there is probably very little self respect either. And yet, the beauty of life, is that no matter how bad you have been, you can still at any point choose to turn things around. The past has momentum, but just as it took time to create it, you can slow it and change it.

[Part 3/3, split up because it was too long for one post, but there was no error message about length.]
[This is only posted in one thread: this seemed the most relevant one.]

But GOG hasn’t changed. So far, anyway. The disingenuousness, the withholding of pertinent information, the ignoring of their customers (against their own stated policy), the resort to threats and blocks rather than answering: it keeps doubling down on the lowest common denominator of corporate behaviour. I am so sad to see this happen to a company I respected. I’m sure there are many within GOG who feel the same way, but can’t do anything about it because the decisions are made above them, and they have strict orders on what to do. I’ve worked for companies that exert that level of control and threat over employees livelihoods (often the same ones that then favour Non-disclosure Agreements to silence people even after they have left the company, to keep the truth hidden).

Even though I’d bought games in the past on GOG and not liked them, or they hadn’t worked, I had never refunded anything. After this Devotion situation occurred and GOG just ignored requests for the truth, I did refund my last order for a number of games. Then sales came up, when I always bought more than I needed: I didn’t buy anything. It’s been three months now, and not only have I not bought anything on GOG when I would have spent a significant amount of money in the past, but I deleted my wishlist and stopped going to the site, stopped visiting the forums daily, stopped following them on social media (well, them blocking me also added to that). I’ve stopped promoting them and their games. In fact, in conversations about games, this is the topic that keeps coming up. Does one person have much effect? Well, it might be possible to calculate that maybe so far they’d have made £100+ from me in the last few months, and people I introduced to GOG might have doubled or tripled that. Over a couple of years that could well be an impact of a few thousand pounds, just from one super fan. I know I am not the only one disillusioned by this. Obviously GOG decided a few thousand from a few hundred customers isn’t enough to compare to access to the Chinese market, and they may well be right (though it is daft to think it has NO impact – over a decade, where people discourage friends from buying games there, rather than encouraging, the figures may be higher. Who knows.). They also decided that the effects of treating customers like this, and the way it affects their reputation, are outweighed by potential increased profit. Again, they may be right, though in business there is an increased focus on the importance of reputation, super-loyal customers, your perceived honesty and so on. Those can have unmeasurable but real effects over time. Only time will tell. I think the saddest thins for me is that it probably was some financial weighing up made by senior staff: the point being, they were weighing up profit, and not applying much importance to non-financial considerations like reputation, ethics, fairness, customer opinion. All the things companies like to say are important to them can be thrown under the bus immediately when they see a chance at making more profit for the execs and shareholders. That reveals what a thin veneer the ethics often are over the core business, and how successfully people are manipulated into believing in the ethics.

Again, I’m sure there are good staff at GOG, who believe in the original mission. I’m sure many are frustrated. Many will be sick of this topic, and also hate the silence enforced on them. Hey have bills to pay and can’t risk their jobs. So the senior staff get their way. They decide it’s time to get rid of their long-term supporters, because maybe there is more profit nowadays in adapting to be more like Steam. After all, if they stick to some principle like DRM-free, they reduce the number of games they can sell; and, since they get a cut of each game sold, they are choosing lower profit and ethics over increased profit. With the decision about Devotion, it’s fairly clear, reading between the lines, that they decided to actually go for the option that makes more money, and to sideline honesty or customer-focus. Maybe it’s an experiment, to see how it goes, before making more radical changes that could boost profit even further. They know that if they are going to change so much, they’ll lose the “old guard” anyway, the ones with them from the start, the ones evangelical about DRM and ethics and customer-focus. So maybe it’s not a loss to them after all, just part of an inevitable emulation of the big game companies that make huge profits without worrying about ethics. So what if games on Steam require multiple accounts and forms of DRM and big publishers put in huge prices and push DLC and loot boxes … as long as they make increased profits, that’s the thing.

I return to my point earlier: every person and company is presented with a choice. On the one hand is sticking to your principles, behaving ethically, being honest, but accepting that you will make less profit or have fewer material gains. Or you can go the opposite route. As a person who has always favoured ethics over my own convenience, preference or income (e.g. choosing librarian/educator over advertising unethical products; never owning a car and not flying; choosing not to have children; avoiding games I would have otherwise enjoyed because I won’t support DRM; adopting a vegan lifestyle favouring local and seasonal produce; shopping in small independent stores rather than supermarkets, to name a few) it is second nature to me to make my primary effort that of living by my beliefs, and telling the truth, and keeping my promises. I try to surround myself with similar people. In this case my disappointment is because I made a mistake in one of my choices.

I apologise that this is a long post and rambles on a bit. I feel like there is a lot I wanted to get off my chest. Maybe it’s not even all bad. Since this occurred I’ve started buying games on Itch, and enjoyed many that aren’t available elsewhere. I’ve also been spending a LOT less money on games. That’s been a bit weird for me, as someone who started playing games in the 1980s on my Atari 2600, moving on to a C64, then Amigas, then PC, but who has never stopped playing games. They’ve always been my main hobby, sometimes to the point of obsession - https://www.karldrinkwater.uk/2014/11/the-doom-wars.html and https://www.karldrinkwater.uk/2016/04/the-hexen-wars.html are just the tip of the iceberg. I spent years playing Dungeon Master and Blood Money and Hired Guns almost exclusively back in my Amiga days. Before that I was obsessed with Ghosts N Goblins, Antiriad, Skool Daze and Alleykat on my C64. I’ve only just finished a 12 month campaign of the massive UFO mod, X-Pirates, and started another co-op playthrough of all the HoMM3 missions with my nephew. But I don’t need to keep pumping money into GOG. Maybe they did me a favour by alienating me, and making me question where I spent some of my leisure money. I suppose it is like splitting up with someone, it can be a shock at first, but sometimes you realise maybe it’s for the best.

[PS Apologies for any typos, this has been one long brain splurge.]

Thanks for your posts, kdgog. They are quite long, but imo worth reading and I sympathize with many of the points you make. Personally, I think it is inevitable that, when a company goes public, they will end up being controlled by execs who don't understand or care about their original values, and will prioritize short-term profit and appeasing shareholders over ethics and respect for their customers. It seems it is sadly not possible in this day and age for a business to be successful, without falling into that hole and becoming corrupted.

I think all we can do is vote with our wallets and stop buying. It is the only sort of message they will understand or care about, and we need to show that we will not accept this continued slippage of the site into the impersonal corporate sham it is fast turning into.

If you are looking for an alternative DRM-free store that (imo) is worth supporting, I don't know if you have tried Zoom Platform? They have a good selection of DRM-free game with offline installers and their staff are very friendly and frequently chat with users in their Discord channel. There is talk of them releasing some new games in the near future (1-2 weeks?).