Can i just address the elephant in the room? We know damn well. Even without the controversies, people brag about having completely left steam a long time ago. Frankly, it's really starting to sound like the basic re-entry (with a different alt, and no, it's not hard to make new accounts and get a bunch of cheap $1 games on them to make them look more used, especially during a sale, and that's ignoring the idea that this isn't gog, but i don't have any reason to assume a conspiracy that deep) into the same discussion. It's been every single thread, and it's a false dichotomy that is obvious on the face of it. Playing whack-a-mole with this argument popping up is getting pretty old.

I would've bought Heretic, and many games in the sale (as usual), but I'm so disappointed in GOG for being disingenuous about the removal of Devotion, as well as the actual decision, that I haven't bought anything, and won't ever again unless GOG resolves this mess and responds honestly to the many tens of thousands of comments about it on Twitter, fora etc. I also did my first ever GOG refund of my last order (four games). To be honest, not buying games is going to save me a fortune, maybe GOG did me a favour, and I can work through my game backlog which might take years. I often bought games on GOG to show support, but the Devotion thing, with its blatant lie about the reasons and then complete silence, has pulled all that away. If I do want any other games I guess it's going to be via Itch, which also doesn't require a launcher and has many DRM-free games.

Do they EVER?
As far as I'm concerned they only react after half of their house has already been flooded with tsunami of sh*t.
They are becoming a living definition of "this is fine, fire in same room, meme".

"Hey! Stop using "master" in your branch naming! I, an individual different than you, proclaim that I hereby know better than you what were your intentions and which meaning out of array of multimeanings for this particular word you meant! Make your branch naming "neutral" so it doesn't offend ME!".

Are you like, BIASED?

No, they should not be abiding to some arbitrary censorship desires.
Free speech (that includes right to expression through art, such as games) is a fundamental human right.
Thwarting it is stright out CENSORSHIP by the book.

When you sign a contract as a publisher with a developer for publicization and distribution of a product you:
1.Do VERY extensive check of the product in question BEFORE letting through the contract (so the publisher BY ALL MEANS knew what they are about to publish)
2.You accept the risk that you A.May face bad public relations B.Sales may not meet expectations.

Hey, have you ever heard of internet?
It's such a random place where bunch of random people can easily share information worldwide.
Maybe more people knew about the thing than those who found it themselves? Perhaps. "Who knows" /s

Any publicly facing shared info targeted at userbase / consumers / community IS public relations.
It doesn't matter how they say it, whether be it their official twitter account or obscurely hidden official post or official mod response on their own forum.

Perhaps I am missing something but there is no public trace suggesting Devotion devs would give 100% of their proceeds to GOG company.
And unless proven otherwise I don't think ALL sales of ALL products on GOG halted as of now.
There is more soures of income other than just 1 game.

It's funny how you nailed the coffin here.
Yes, they pretty much received an slew of emails spam ULTIMATELY originating from most probably A user, SINGULAR source.

Having a contract as a game developer / product / content creator with a publisher assumes publisher hanlding at least partial sum of public relations.
It's only natural that they also get some of the blame.
It's a completely normal, even more, EXPECTED, situation in this industry.

Then you should also remove Cyberfail (at least until issues are ACTUALLY taken care of) since it's costing them stable flow of financial and public appearance issues.
And that certainly HAS impact on employees' wages' sustainability.

HaHA! It's time to conquer a new land!
Men! Charge!

"What's the problem? We only took your liberty and right to buy a product on international market because it offended SOMEBODY on our DOMESTIC market"
"Grow up a bit".

"It's just a damn texture". "Just remove it. What's the problem?" "I, one singular person, am cowardly and don't like memes, so REMOVE THEM from your offshore-made product to-be-sold on non-domestic market".

"Hey! I can see your memes poster through your window through our spy satelite! REMOVE IT NOW!" "You don't want to? What's the problem? It's only a poster".

Lol. DO YOU EVEN KNOW how game submission process looks like?

Yes, of course, you wouldn't risk giving your userbase ability to CHOOSE BY THEIR OWN WILL if they want to buy the game or not.

Pick one.

Ah, yes, "the majority does that so it must be fine".
This specific attitude is one of THE things that piss me off THE MOST in this worldline.

If the dev in question removed allegedly offending (SOME questionably low amount of people) material then entire argument as to why GOG refuses to release it ("we recieved blah blah that there is offensive material X") crumbles down like a house build OUT of sand after a tsunami.

Hey, here is an idea, why not just pull the game from one coutry market where allegedly it gets seen as offensive?
Oh, right, it still offends those "people" (cough implication of "them" being non-singular source cough) because they have X-ray vision and see someone playing it in another country. Right. Sure.

What's going on with you lately, CD Projekt? First it's the CP77 fiasco and now this? If you had reasons to pull a game from your store, as is your prerogative, this was NOT the way to do it.

Using Twitter was a mistake. You can not adequately explain this situation in 280 characters. I'm also curious to hear how you've come to the conclusion that the people who were complaining were gamers. Because that's the word you used. Not people, not customers, gamers.

You also never explained what these "gamers" were complaining about. I'll take a wild guess and say that it was that Winnie the Pooh easter egg on a talisman. Ignoring the fact that most players won't notice it, let alone understand it due to the language barrier the devs removed the talisman from their game LAST YEAR. This is literally a non-issue. Super disappointed with you right now, CDP.

They can't be when countries have laws and regulations when it comes to controlling the contents of videogames, both democracies and dictatorships. You an't make a game about nazi germany and expect it to be sold just like that there, for instance. Freedom is more of a figure of speech than a reality.

Where do you get your information from? As far as I know, they did exactly that, two years ago. The game does not contain the offending meme anymore, now the offense seems to have nothing to do with the game anymore but just the notion that devs supposedly support a pro-Taiwan (as in "independent country separate from China") stance and that Chinese players - some of them formerly enthusiastic about the game itself - feel betrayed by that. And back then, the devs immediately tried to avert all blame from their publisher but to no avail.

Also, GOG did not refuse to list the game like they refused to list Hatred or some other games they did not think a good fit for their store (some of those decisions have been revised later on), they actually chose to list the game and gave the devs hope, only to backpedal literally two days before release, due to the pressure of "many messages from gamers". The info about the previous controversies surrounding the game was all over the internet, if this came as a total surprise to GOG, they didn't do their research.

Anyway, if anyone wants to inform themselves about the actual background of the controversy, from an approximately more objective point of view before making assumptions, this is an interesting read (including the commentary section):

https://www.spieltimes.com/original/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh-in-devotion-the-taiwanese-perspective-the-chinese-perspective-the-neutral-ground/

And now GOG's deleting posts again. Boy, they sure are active when it comes to deleting posts, huh?

Steam, what's that? The DRM cesspool where besides the main DRM you even risk getting Origin and Uplay? Unlike GOG, I don't use it and am not going to, why would I go to lash a site I'm not using?

Okay I'll comment once more.

It is said GOG advertised the game on Weibo, right? Who knows who sent them the messages, but most likely those messages come from gamers, or at least people who followed the game news rigorously or even perhaps those who found the easter egg, not some stock traders in wall street.

This case reminds me of awfully similar incident a while ago. An Indonesian artist (penciler) working for Marvel Comic slip some hidden political messages into his panels. Marvel didn't notice at first and even released the comic book with those "easter eggs" in it. Of course those easter eggs was found by comic book community, and thus people report their findings to Marvel.

Right after Marvel got those messages, the artist was fired from Marvel instantly. I agree 100% with Marvel's decision.

Here're the news about that event :

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/10/15242446/xmen-anti-semitic-ardian-syaf

Just curious, what would the "free speech advocates" here would say about that case?

So the bottom line is. I stand with my point. GOG have all the rights to refuse to list the game. It is their store and they can choose what they sell there. About the excuse why they refuse to sell it doesn't really matter, but logically I don't think they're lying. There's no way wall street stock traders sent them the messages right? Most likely pro government gamers who hang out at Weibo. Or some guys who have decent interest in videogames.

Anyway here's what I really don't understand : if it is really about free speech, why not make a whole game entirely based on that topic? Why not be up front about it? Why hid it in easter egg within a media that have a very irrelevant topic? That's what I call hipocricy. Just like the artist I mentioned above.

In my opinion, you are free to express whatever political views you have within your own media, in this case games and comic, not others. Sure the devs slip the easter egg within their own games they've developed. You want to live in the edge, taking unnecessary risks in everything you do, go ahead, do it. No one will stop you, that's your right, your choice.

But most importantly don't drag others into your shit. The publisher had the impact by having their business license revoked. That's where the devs failed to take responsibility. That's one reckless, unnecessary action from the devs and has taken victim from other party.

If you really have to play the game, you can get it somewhere else. GOG isn't the only place where you can buy games. You can even message the devs, perhaps even directly buy from them even if they're in Taiwan and you're in Iceland. The magic of internet.

Also answering some questions on previous posts, yes I know how these submission works. I got involved in couple of Japanese videogames recently, all of them were multiplatform. I also have personal developer accounts across some platforms. Believe me, it's not that tight. How do you think Arkham Knight can get into Steam in such a buggy mess of state? And how about Cyberpunk on Playstation store? Even Nintendo is really loose nowadays.

So the cool kids don't use steam nowadays eh? lol

I don't care about the platform. I just want to play the games I want to play. When BF3 came out, Origin was a requirement, so fine. And within my BF3 career it was a smooth ride anyway, I enjoy every second of it. For Honor came out I'm fine with Uplay. Those are special cases though. I look wihtin GOG first then somewhere else, because yeah DRM free.

Cheers.

Are you seriously comparing anti semitic images to satiric image that compares a country leader to the Pooh?

First of all, please read the whole article before you reply, don't just read the title.

Second, to be fair personally I don't see any anti semitic images in what he draw. At least from the panels I've looked. He only insert numbers and some letters in there. That could mean anything. But since I understand the background idea of it, I support Marvel's decision.

Third, both are political views, expressed in similar ways. Not up front. Both claimed victims.

And finally, I support GOG in this red candle debacle. They have every right to refuse to sell Devotion, it's their store. And again whether they're lying or not that doesn't affect me. I still got shit tons of other games to play. And there're many other platforms if GOG even goes down with this controversy. So...

You do realize that social media in China is heavily controlled, right? There are as many as 300,000 people paid to post pro-government comments and content. It's estimated that there are 500,000,000 comments being made per year on that basis. There's also grassroots jingoism that is somewhat autonomous, so the controversy might have started this way. I tried to write about it in more detail in an earlier comment but the gist of it is that Internet opinions there have zero correlation to what "real" people actually think. It's just a tool to establish the illusion of consent.

There are a lot of actual gamers in China who seem to have liked the game. After all, it's one of the few such games to depict Chinese culture, and doing so accurately. (There's also the supreme irony that a work of art promoting Chinese culture is being cancelled due to protests originating from China, of all places.)

The Devotion situation isn't purely a freedom-of-speech issue. Freedom of speech is a public-law concept (describing relations between an individual and the government). Relations between companies and individuals are regulated by private law. A company doesn't have an obligation to uphold freedom of speech on a private platform. Simply put, you have the right to say what you want but it doesn't imply that anybody has the obligation to listen, or to help you spread your message. (There is a good case that dominant Internet platforms should not be allowed to use this defense but no legal requirement as of now.)

But this example isn't even remotely similar. There is no objectionable content in the game, and it's considered to be high-quality, so there is no reasonable case against listing it.

The developers said it was a placeholder that they forgot to replace later.

As far as I know, they apologized for that.

This is a very good observation. Steam is better in terms of pricing, availability, update frequency, download speeds, customer service, having all purchases in one place. GOG can differentiate themselves by staying DRM-free, launcherless, being more ethical, communicating better with the users. The moment they give up on this, they will have surrendered all of their competitive advantage.

the comments about social media control in china are accurate, but i don't like how people pretend that these things don't happen on "free" countries...

And once again, people are assuming that laws are equal to all countries, and that's not true. Just because America allows everything in paper (but not in practice) it doesn't mean that all countries are like this. democracies or dictatorships, it doesn't matter.

if anything this makes me see that the internet is american, whether we like ir ot now

Just requested refund for Cyberpunk, deleted my GOG library and uninstalled galaxy. I think we gave GOG enough time to handle this situation with dignity and from now on its on them.
The longer it is the more it takes to make things right. Being honest and dont lie could be enough and the beginging but its not enough now. I would never expect CDP to behave worse than Blizzard, Activision or EA especially on matter like this...

Oh come on those are just your assumptions. Yeah I admit I make assumption too; which is IMO it is highly unlikely the message come from any people who have no interest in videogames at all. But there's no exact number ratio on how many liked the game or despise the game because of the hidden easter eggs right? Nobody went to china and ask the gamers there one by one what they think about the game. You're missing the most important point : GOG are not obliged to list the game in any way, it's their store, and it's their right to refuse to sell a game whatever the reason is

I know I wouldn't like if I have a store then somebody came to me trying to force their stuffs to be sold in my store, even if their goods is in excellent quality. From what I see on the screenshots, the easter egg asset was quite well done, seems finished and it was consistent with the rest of art direction. But ok. And their apology got the publisher's business license issued back? No, right?