Posted December 23, 2020
What many people think: China started all this. GOG had to respond somehow and couldn't do anything else because China threatened them.
What actually happened: GOG started all this by announcing Devotion's release on their Weibo (China's Twitter), and China is just being China.
Think about it. The game caused a controversy in China before (objectionable material was since removed). There was a campaign against it on the Chinese social media. If you were in GOG's shoes and decided to re-release the game a year later, which one place do you want to avoid posting about it?
Your answer: Ch............. s............. m...........
Clearly, that wasn't GOG's answer. Why? Who knows. But the point is:
They let the Chinese social media know first-hand from their official Weibo account that the game these people successfully managed to get taken down from Steam a year ago is now coming back. So, the same people started the same campaign again. Surprising? Not.
They tweeted straight into the lion's den. What did they expect? Everything else that followed is purely on them.
GOG cannot claim they only did what they did to survive if they had started it all themselves.
What if: Instead GOG could have released the game elsewhere except in China, not posted about it in China, and there would have been no controversy in China.
There were games censored in some countries released on GOG before, and GOG were able to sell them elsewhere. There are also other games on GOG that used to be controversial in China but nobody on the Chinese social media is complaining about it because GOG didn't remind them by tweeting about it from their official Weibo account.
What now: They should not have promoted the game in China, and they should not have banned it outside of China. Both are politically-charged decisions, and businesses should avoid political activism. But the first misstep cannot be cancelled by the other, the mistakes only keep compounding.
It's one thing to buy from China. It's another thing to let China determine who you can buy from.
The former is fine. The latter puts anyone who agrees to it in a subordinate position.
Chinese customers are important. Their sensitivities should be respected. But the other customers must not be an afterthought either.
China themselves understands this and just like they wouldn't let anyone else decide what's going on within their country, they accept they won't have the final say in what's going on outside their borders. Disney's very own Winnie-the-Pooh hasn't been banned worldwide, despite the company's huge presence in China.
The right thing to do now is still to release the game outside of China. This is the only decision that can convince people from over 190 other countries that they are not second-class customers to GOG.
Credit: the announcement was actually spotted early on by Mori_Yuki but it seems very few people are aware of it until now. GOG's Weibo post was deleted since but I was able to verify it with other sources and obtain a screenshot, on which you can also see some people celebrating. The second screenshot is GOG's retraction statement. Both are attached. The last part of my message was inspired by a post by Shendue.
What actually happened: GOG started all this by announcing Devotion's release on their Weibo (China's Twitter), and China is just being China.
Think about it. The game caused a controversy in China before (objectionable material was since removed). There was a campaign against it on the Chinese social media. If you were in GOG's shoes and decided to re-release the game a year later, which one place do you want to avoid posting about it?
Your answer: Ch............. s............. m...........
Clearly, that wasn't GOG's answer. Why? Who knows. But the point is:
They let the Chinese social media know first-hand from their official Weibo account that the game these people successfully managed to get taken down from Steam a year ago is now coming back. So, the same people started the same campaign again. Surprising? Not.
They tweeted straight into the lion's den. What did they expect? Everything else that followed is purely on them.
GOG cannot claim they only did what they did to survive if they had started it all themselves.
What if: Instead GOG could have released the game elsewhere except in China, not posted about it in China, and there would have been no controversy in China.
There were games censored in some countries released on GOG before, and GOG were able to sell them elsewhere. There are also other games on GOG that used to be controversial in China but nobody on the Chinese social media is complaining about it because GOG didn't remind them by tweeting about it from their official Weibo account.
What now: They should not have promoted the game in China, and they should not have banned it outside of China. Both are politically-charged decisions, and businesses should avoid political activism. But the first misstep cannot be cancelled by the other, the mistakes only keep compounding.
It's one thing to buy from China. It's another thing to let China determine who you can buy from.
The former is fine. The latter puts anyone who agrees to it in a subordinate position.
Chinese customers are important. Their sensitivities should be respected. But the other customers must not be an afterthought either.
China themselves understands this and just like they wouldn't let anyone else decide what's going on within their country, they accept they won't have the final say in what's going on outside their borders. Disney's very own Winnie-the-Pooh hasn't been banned worldwide, despite the company's huge presence in China.
The right thing to do now is still to release the game outside of China. This is the only decision that can convince people from over 190 other countries that they are not second-class customers to GOG.
Credit: the announcement was actually spotted early on by Mori_Yuki but it seems very few people are aware of it until now. GOG's Weibo post was deleted since but I was able to verify it with other sources and obtain a screenshot, on which you can also see some people celebrating. The second screenshot is GOG's retraction statement. Both are attached. The last part of my message was inspired by a post by Shendue.
Post edited December 23, 2020 by Turbo-Beaver
