Disclaimer: I have no insider information. I will speculate a bit to make my point. This is not new information.

The situation is clear, and it's bad. And I can't spend money here anymore in good conscience. After arguing with some people who disagreed with me, I changed my tone a bit. I came to the following, and honestly hope you'll consider this. (I don't actually expect you to, but surprise me)

While I would highly prefer you release Devotion here (and this would be the best option), this is your company. Your rules. I am a guest, and so are all the publishers and developers who release their games here. You have the right to refuse any game for any reason at any time.

But, there are some things you shouldn't do, and some things you should do, be it for legal reasons or just basic human decency.

1. You can't lie to your customers. If you stick with the "dog ate my homework" excuse of "After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store", you'll have to explain what breed of dog ate your homework, in which room or on what site this happened, how many dogs were involved and why we haven't found a trace of dog drool on any floor of social media.

Perhaps you'd rather be honest. Say you changed your mind as to not offend the Chinese or Chinese government. I'd disagree with that decision, and frankly I think it's stupid, but I'll respect your decision. It's your company. Or, and this is where the speculation really starts, you have received threats. Either from Xi Winnie zealots or even some branch of Hundred Acre Wood (where Winnie lives) government. If you fear for your or your family's safety, I would understand. But be honest. Just say exactly this, that you can't release the game out of fear for your personal safety. File a police report to back that up.

If all else fails, if you are (speculation warning again) literally held at gunpoint, simply say you changed your mind for undisclosed reasons. Such a vague "for undisclosed reasons" excuse is really weak, but it outranks blatant lies by a mile.

2. Reimburse Red Candle Games, the developer. You made them believe you would release their game. They were counting on you, and you pulled the plug at the last minute, destroying their schedule and expected income. I can't say how much you should pay them, but it's fair to say you should be generous.

That's it for me frankly. Tell us the truth, or if you can't, tell us you lied and apologize. And reimburse the developer.

You are aware that Steam did the same exact thing right?

You're not standing up for anyone by picking on GoG when Steam pulled the game from their stores a year ago because the CCP demanded it.

You can't get away from china, they demand absolute control and in exchange they have 1.4 billion people willing to buy your goods. Corporations are never going to make the ethical decision to abandon the chinese market, so counting on them to do so is folly.

Steam, as far as we know, did not pull the game. The developers did. Has Steam banned the game? We don't know. But regardless, Valve hasn't lied about it. If they have banned it, they failed to publicly disclose that, but that (while not ideal) isn't the same as lying. In addition, GOG tends to hold itself to a high moral standard, so expectations are different.

Also you clearly didn't read my letter at all, because I'm not demanding GOG give up China. (that being said I'd encourage it if they did, I doubt the GOG brand is very valuable in China)

I don't care about what Steam does, I don't have over 600 games there, I have them here!

If GOG falls there are still other ways... but it's the support we give that is at stake here!

You do not understand. If you want to do business in china then you NEED to do ANYTHING the CCP tells you to do, you have no say. The CCP says pull a game from your store you do it. The CCP says to tell your NBA player to stop tweeting you do it. And please, the decision to pull the game was all the CCP's doing, death threats may have been involved but steam caved too. If you want to be free of the CCP's control you need to accept what that actually means.

You clearly haven't read my letter. My letter comes down to two very simple things: don't lie and reimburse the developer. I'm not absolutely demanding Devotion, as much as I'd love to see it here.

This is GOG. Nobody cares about Steam. And nobody is calling for GOG to abandon the Chinese market either.

None of what you wrote is even remotely related to the original post, so I take it you haven't even read what you're responding to. And that's a pity because that post makes a very compelling argument. It's well worth reading it, even if you're not really bored. I fully agree. It's one thing if they just didn't want to publish the game and that was it. But how they treated Red Candle Games, reneging on their commitment to publish the game at the very last moment and communicating it via their public social media account only, was downright disgusting. Likewise, the barefaced lie as to how the decision was arrived at demonstrates their condenscension for GOG's customers. None of this was in accord with GOG's self-professed values of "respecting game creators" and "utmost care about customers" as listed on: https://www.gog.com/about_gog

On top of that, their subsequent silence speaks louder than words.

Yes people understand exactly what that means. That you have to sacrifice some profits to stand on principles! People used to have a pair and stand up to this crap. Now they are all sellouts. People are weak and willing to trade freedoms for cash. On top of that, people should tell China to shove it for their horrible human rights abuses that are far too numerous to list here. We used to stand up to thugs like this and tell them no. Now people get on their knees for them. This is the culmination of things that have been going on for decades.

Such a perfect post, especially the last part about thugs.

Sadly I wonder if things will ever change, people become accustomed to being mistreated & start making excuses

Everything from Social Media to Consumerism. Companies screw over people &/or treat them like idiots>people then complain>company offers olive branch (Free Item/discount)>people accept & continue the shitty cycle.

I remember people complaining about the amount of permissions Google & apps wanted on Android, which existed for no other reason than to use the customer as a product & people stuck up for that "Why so paranoid, who cares, I prefer ads tailored to me"

When Instagram were going to claim the rights to sell any pictures that their users uploaded, instead of abandoning Instagram, people tried to change Instagrams mind so they could keep using it. When the best option is to leave these companies behind

Gaming is one where it stands out a lot worse. I still see people making excuses for Microtransactions, Day One Patches, On Disc DLC. The main reason dev costs are higher is because all of them try to one up each other & make the next hit, better graphics, more spent on advertising.

Look at the issue with Switch Joycons & drifting, Nintendo does the bare minimum, keeps using crap parts & they keep selling massive amounts.


People need to realise, even if GOG sells Devotion in the end, supporting them after that just leaves the door open for more BS.

China is becoming more arrogant and aggressive as time goes on, constantly pushing the envelope and taking over more and more things, and stands against them need to be taken.

Fuck the Chinese market, there's a whole world that isn't within China who want to do business, they aren't the be all and end all of commerce and I'm sick of the apologetics for this commie nation and their abusive, thuggish tactics. They wouldn't have the influence they do if companies (and consumers) would stop capitulating to them.

GOG had a chance to do just that, but instead decided to give a big middle finger to the rest of the goddamn world.

Also I don't give half a shit what happens on Steam or any other DRM platform, I have already been boycotting Steam from the moment they locked Half Life 2 to the internet.

This is true. Sadly the governments around the world want to make cheaper everything & China buys a lot of things from other countries. Everyone has turned a blind eye to the modern day slave camps they have, just so they can get their things made cheaper & sell to everyone for maximum profit.

As for China, even now they're starting to mess with Australian relations due to the AU government wanting to look into how Covid started.

So now they are cancelling various exports from Australia to 'punish' us I guess. But there's plenty of other countries to do business with & hopefully more local companies & manufacturers look to other places to sell instead.

They're acting like a big bully & it's up to governments & populations to say enough is enough. Because any country that doesn't tow the line will face the same issue.

They use that weapon of mass-whining so well though. Always just single targeting a country/issue at a time, so that country is left standing alone facing China. If they were to attack everyone they usually attack at the same time, countries would probably find it quite easy to unite and stand up to them.

and that's what our countries should be doing

Oh, I'm sure they will, but in a true Western fashion, we're going to give them some Lebensraum first. I guess our government will spring to action when they invade Poland. At least they will have CD Projekt headquarters to use as a beachhead

Yep, agree 100%