Anakin-Skywalker: These are the same individuals that will literally send death threats to CDPR's top brass when the game is delayed and send them messages saying they are going to chop off their heads

teceem: Just my opinion (my last sentence):
Have you considered other ways of "blowing off steam"? e.g.: friends/social media/blogging/hobbies/sports/etc. etc. how about playing a game?
Shouldn't forums/fora be mainly a communication medium?

BrianSim: I'm reading just fine and quoted you "must be the same individuals that will literally send death threats" exactly letter for letter. You are so completely over the top "enraged" at something that you are literally pinning everything on "the community" and making a fool of yourself in the process out of misplaced over-compensated anger issues.

Name them. Who here on GOG has been "sending death threats"? Show me.

"If the shoe fits" = are you accusing me of sending death threats too? (something GOG can easily disprove)? Reported for trolling. Seriously dude, switch off the computer, go out and get some fresh air and calm down until you get a grip of yourself. This is embarrassing for everyone...

AB2012: They really aren't. The death threats weren't even about politics, Devotion or China, they were a couple of dumb kids sulking because Cyberpunk was delayed (and that was back in October):-
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/cyberpunk-2077-dev-responds-to-death-threats-over-delay/1100-6483868/

Just close the thread already...

BrianSim: There have been some strong reactions to Devotion over the past day or so, but between this thread and the other one (which also needs closing too, not out of censorship but because it's full on trolling right from the very obvious highly antagonistic and provocative worded tone of the first post), right now some of the greatest toxicity of all on this site is actually coming from those claiming to be "anti-toxic" with posts along the lines of "I just KNOW what everyone is thinking because I'm psychic. NO-ONE anywhere here cared about the game before GOG removal. You're ALL doing it because you want to hate. Yes that's it. If two of you criticise Devotion's removal and express hate then ALL you who criticise Devotion's removal are haters too".

The anti-stereotyping stereotyping here is absolutely ridiculous to see, and literal trolling. Over & out...

Tinqer: Opening a thread by lumping people who care about the political aspects of games with those who send death threats is a little volatile.

At some point all people die and all empires fall. I may be a silly progressive, but there's no financial bottom line more important to me than standing up to powerful bullies wherever possible.

Being afraid of "provoking them" or "breaking [their] rules" just gives them more power.

Anakin-Skywalker: This post will probably be negatively rated to hell, but I want to lay it out there.

CDPR was silly to offer Devotion a spot in their storefront. This is a game that was highly controversial because of its inclusion of a stupid meme that offended a overly sensitive idiot that is the brutal dictator Xi. The developers of Devotion were stupid by hiding this meme that was going to be found sooner or later purposefully provoking the CCP and the hordes of online trolls the party has at its disposal and the outcome was going to be predictable - they were going to suffer the consequences. Their excuse that the meme was just an asset placeholder is embarrassing and it is clear that it was put there as a hidden easter egg.

China has an oppressive and dictatorial approach to freedom of speech, this is not going to be resolved by purposefully provoking it into a reaction especially when you are a small developer, this is done through social, economic and political pressure. It was a stupid move by the developers that will no doubt cost them their studio, it is a sad but totally avoidable situation - they got cocky and paid the price. The game was removed from steam and immediately became toxic waste that no one wanted anything with it, because sponsoring this game was going to be seen by China as an endorsement of this meme, given that the meme became more talked about than the actual game it was in.

CDPR thought it was going to be brave and empowering and it opened its doors to this toxic waste and the results were predictable by anyone with two braincells - the troll factory from the CCP disguised as GOG costumers inundated their inbox showing outrage or they received a serious call from one of their major investors and was told to cut it off or lose a large percentage of their investment money. Even coming anywhere near this game was always going to be a bad decision, and CDPR seems to be keen on making those recently. So obviously they backed off and people got pissed.

Now it's the pissed part for me that really grinds my gears - despite the fact that CDPR's leadership should look to have its leadership removed and replaced by someone that is actually competent or at least less subservient to investor pressure and whoever made this stupid decision should be fired, the fact people are upset at the actual removal of the game demonstrates the level of hypocrisy and immaturity from this community.

How many times have we heard that games and other media should not be politicized, how many games were review bombed on various platforms because they included overtly political messages that offended the large majority of this community, especially those around identity politics, sexuality, etc. I agree with this message 100% - video-games are not political outlets for your beliefs, regardless of what they are, they are means of entertainment. They should not bring us to a reflection of our world, but allow us to escape it, whatever message we obtain from that escape is our own to interpret. No game will ever bring down a political or ideological view, and the idea that it can is simply absurd. So why the outrage with this move from CDPR that removed a game that had an overtly political message just like the others you probably took the effort to sign in Metacritic to give a 0?

Well first its because it's popular now to shit on CDPR. They fucked up their Cyberpunk release and the game was miles away from what they promised, it was an interesting game certainly, even a quite fun at that, but it was not a mind blowing next-gen RPG that blew our minds - My brother and I played about 40 hours of it and have already moved on. Besides that it was horribly optimised, buggy and for some impossible to play on consoles. To add insult to injury it has been removed from the PlayStation store, review bombed on Metacritic and all of the youtubers that got free event passes to CDPR's events and free early access copies have turned on them because its what the audience is asking for and as the slime that they are even they started shitting on the company they couldn't simp enough for a few weeks ago. So it's funny and popular to shit on CDPR so the community petulant that they are are perfectly happy kicking another one for shit and giggles.

Secondly, the community is a toxic hypocritical mess - despite the fact that 90% of players (the term 'gamers' is pure cringe') are sane and normal individuals, its the small but vocal minority that call themselves the community that are pure petulant children that shout at a game when it becomes overtly political but only when the politics are against their views. These are the same individuals that will literally send death threats to CDPR's top brass when the game is delayed and send them messages saying they are going to chop off their heads, but then cry on Metacritic that the game doesn't run well on their toaster. These individuals have now taken interest in a small unknown developer in Taiwan that though they were going to change the world and free china from Mista Chi by provoking and insulting them, as if the result wasn't perfectly predictable. Didn't you popularise the term 'get woke, go broke' ? Where is that energy then, that developers who put their political views on games will eventually go broke - isn't that what's happening right now?

Then those slimeballs youtubers start asking you to support their company - bro, they had their licenses revoked, they are done, dusted and will probably never be able to work again in that industry due to the dystopian social score system they have, do you really think its going to be 15 dollars at their game that will save them? Your activism has as much worth as a Facebook like. They could leave their activism at the door, publish a game that by all account was quite good and then proceed to do their activism as a separate activity, it would probably cost them their lives, but that is the price to pay in current China, sadly. You cannot purposefully do something that is illegal in your country and then cry about having repercussions.

All of you that keep spamming these forums with this shit topic, shut up and go play a good old game

MichaelD.965: Xi is a pathetic sissy-bitch who is literally "provoked" at the visage of a century-old teddy-bear; literally anything he doesn't like should be encouraged at every opportunity, especially Muslims getting to keep their dicks.

Anakin-Skywalker: And that's your opinion, you should be able to keep it and spread it around as you wish - however, say that gog removes your comment because it violates their rules, so you keep breaking them and breaking them instead of writing to gog and trying to get other people to write to gog to change their policies, what do you think is going to be more useful? I don't think that China is in the right here, I'm simply saying that they have their rules and breaking them has a consequence, it's not gog's fault that they chose to broke it, its their fault they even touched it

jonridley: This isn't about rules, it's about values and it's about trust. It's true that the other storefronts aren't carrying this game. GOG told Red Candle that they would and then immediately changed their minds once the news was out. And they had the absolute disrespect to claim this was at the behest of "the gamers". Really this was about one man's ego and his ability to control access to his nation's commerce. Just because I understand why they made this decision doesn't mean I have to ever respect or buy from them again as they're willing to stab developers in the back and say it's what their customers like me and you want. They want to blacklist on behalf of ccp that's on them.

jonridley: I'll bet they didn't blame their own customers in a tweet last time. That's what really sticks in my craw.

BluesyMoo: I think GOG deciding to lie that it was "many gamers" was a moral and business decision. Actually, an immoral one.

Niggles: Only two comments

GOG's owners really put their foot in it. Cyberpunks mess (does it sound reasonable companies should be testing their games as much as possible before release?. alpha/beta's?. how long had this game been in development? .I havent followed the development but really they should have kept the media hyper to a minimal and not place pressure on themselves to get something out the door which wasnt ready).

Devotion mess -- well the PR department really didnt use their brains and just dropped a goose eggs. The whole bending over for China business needs to stop - every company. yes China is big. Yes China unfortunately has a lot of money (well the elite 1% unfortunately) to blow. Way too much influence.. but companies and customer to a point only have themselves to blame. Which comes around to CDPR. Who are the actual investors people claim they need to keep happy?. Are they that important ???. So bloody what if some chinese bots....i mean gamers get upset?. Those toolbags in China threw out an upsetting tweet @ aussies (google it) recently and refused to take it down - does this mean its ok for them to be negative and not right for others to make fun of them?. oh man......

Niggles: Only two comments

GOG's owners really put their foot in it. Cyberpunks mess (does it sound reasonable companies should be testing their games as much as possible before release?. alpha/beta's?. how long had this game been in development? .I havent followed the development but really they should have kept the media hyper to a minimal and not place pressure on themselves to get something out the door which wasnt ready).

Devotion mess -- well the PR department really didnt use their brains and just dropped a goose eggs. The whole bending over for China business needs to stop - every company. yes China is big. Yes China unfortunately has a lot of money (well the elite 1% unfortunately) to blow. Way too much influence.. but companies and customer to a point only have themselves to blame. Which comes around to CDPR. Who are the actual investors people claim they need to keep happy?. Are they that important ???. So bloody what if some chinese bots....i mean gamers get upset?. Those toolbags in China threw out an upsetting tweet @ aussies (google it) recently and refused to take it down - does this mean its ok for them to be negative and not right for others to make fun of them?. oh man......

Kazuki_sensei: It's more of the fact that upsetting the wrong people can have massive consequences. If China's government wanted to, they could ban GOG entirely, damaging CDPR's customer base. CDPR have never done a game as ambitious as CP2077, apart from the Witcher 3, and both had issues at launch. People have got to realize that it's to be expected cause CDPR is just another company like Bioware or 2K and shouldn't be treated as the second coming of Christ, although CDPR have done a lot of good supporting their games well after release, but the matter with Devotion is that it upset people, and to avoid further trouble, they did what they thought was best and removed it so the Chinese government wouldn't lose their shit. I also believe CDPR's way of handling the situation and choice of words was very poor but it's better than starting an outrage with a whole nother country. At the end of the day, freedom of speech is great but if you purposely include something in your game to poke fun at someone who won't take kindly to it, well thats on you mate.

BluesyMoo: There is no "avoid further trouble" with the communists. It's not like they show you their law and say, please don't violate these items again, then we'll be fine. Instead, they get their feelings hurt and demand your action to unhurt their feelings. Until the next time they want you to, say divulge all addresses of Uighur to unhurt their feelings.

As long as you self-identify as a CCP plaything, they will invent some further trouble that you must fix. The CCP's whole business with you is to invent further trouble when they want you to comply.