That's normal that if you want to sell games in China you have to follow China's rules. What isn't normal is China dictating that a store based in Europe can't sell games to people in Europe, the Americas, etc, when neither the people buying the games, the store selling the games or the people who made the game are "mainland Chinese". That should not become normalized at all.

Let's flip it around. Let's say The Isle of Man splits off from Great Britain. A small game studio based on the Isle of Man makes a horror game. Inside that game is one single visual joke poking fun at the British Prime Minister's infamous haircut. Britain responds by demanding the game be banned worldwide, not just inside Britain but, eg, demanding that unless a Chinese game store not sell the game to not only China but everywhere else, eg, Malaysia, Thailand, etc, the entire store gets banned for business for every unrelated game to every unrelated country. This is exactly what gets labelled "throwing your weight around" or "imperialism" (but only when "the west" do it). When China does it, it's apparently "good business or something". The hypocrisy is staggering...

Guess I hit the nail on the head hmm?

Also lmao at Taiwanese redneck as if you couldn't be more wrong

You do realize that the PDRC terrorist regime is the lead source of software piracy, and that most developers won't be able to get their games sold in the country anyways, right? That it's responsible for grievous human rights abuses, and the deaths of over 80 million people in the 20th century alone, right?

To be rather blunt, if CD Projekt or it's subsidiaries accede to any demands made by the PDRC terrorist regime, the inevitable outcome for gog.com is every game you want to play being removed from the platform eventually. The entire *Fallout* series is prohibited for sale in mainland. Jade Empire, is forbidden forr sale in the Chinese mainland.

The only chinese who should get a voice about what is sold on the gog.com platform are those able to give their opinion without coercion. So, basically the people of Real China, located on Taiwan island.
We are. Get that through your skull Wumao.

I don't live in China and there are no laws here that ban the use of Winnie-the-Pooh in video games.

But yet I'm being subjected to Chinese censorship? Why? Because the leader of the CCP has been described before to look like Winnie-the-Pooh.

Plenty of companies out there that do indeed do business in China and release games there subject to their laws. But yet those companies don't wholesale change their products outside China. Film companies also do this.

That is a very narrow way of looking at things, friend, though you are technically right. Money is just a construct to facilitate trade in general and policy and development at state level. Much of the success of free-market communism in China is very much owed to the success of liberal capitalism in the USA - China gives cheap labor to facilitate the influx of knowledge and the growth of local industry (and to gain leverage in other matters, of course). As much as they pose as enemies, the USA and China depend on each other in a strange form of symbiosis for a number of things.

Oh, come on. Not trying to satisfy China at the every step of the way doesn't mean you can't do business there. EA made Battlefield 4, a game about democratic revolution in China. Yes, the game was banned in China, but EA still released game and still does business in China.

It's kinda shocking to see EA having a stronger backbone than CD Projekt.

The thing is. I can understand Western companies following Chinese rules when they are doing business IN CHINA. Yes, it's an authoritarian government and they want to control stuff. I don't like the system, but it's up to the Chinese people themselves if they want to change the system they live under or not.

My problem is when companies bring Chinese censorship to the rest of the world like in blocking Devotion from gamers all over the world. We don't even know if CD Projekt actually received any pressure from Chinese government itself or if they just crapped themselves at the thought of maybe doing something that might offend Chinese government and decided to pre-emptively self-censor themselves. Which would be even worse than giving up to actual pressure.

Whatever the reason, they should have had the backbone to stand by the developers and release the game for audience outside of China. If Chinese people at the other side of the world don't like the game because of one stupid joke, fine, but it doesn't mean I should have my freedom of choice limited because of it.

U.S. government does the same every single day. Even more than that - it's always "my way or no way", saying FU to international laws and regulations.

To be fair it was 7 years ago, not sure if they would do it again today.

"Whataboutism" is a nonsense Cold War era term coined to be thrown to prevent valid criticism. Like when someone blames others for what he himself is guilty of.
Like:

- "Hey neighbor, why the hell you kicked my dog?!!!"
- "Because your dog took a dump near my door."
- "YOU SAVAGE!!! THAT'S ANIMAL ABUSE!!!"
- "Your dog is fine, it was just one weak kick that didn't even hurt and at least i didn't break my own grandfather's nose because he turned TV volume too high"
- "THAT'S WHATABOUTISM, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT MY DOG, NOT MY GRANDFATHER!!!"

Oh, believe me, most people do, it's just as sickening seeing even WHO and UN turn 180 degrees in a short amount of time just to please and appease.

However, it's not easy. I think the world have let China+NK rave on for far too long, and they do at this point possess an powerful and excessive force, not only as an economical power but also a military power.

US and NATO knows perfectly well China is speedrunning to be the biggest military power in the world in a few years.