The important thing is you misrepresented what he wrote, and then built your whole argument upon it, also getting some facts wrong along the way.

And Shendue's summary is actually one of the better observations about this whole situation: It's one thing to do business with China. It's another thing to let China determine who you can do business with.

That's the essence of it. The former is fine. The latter puts anyone who agrees to it in a subordinate position.

Some people said: you can't have a problem with what GOG did if your fridge magnets are made in China. Yes we can. How? Because these are actually two completely different things.

Many people have posted good stuff.

The thing that I don't get though, is how people are portraying this to be an issue of a vindictive, petty dictator concerned so much about some tiny gaming dev studio crossing the line and likening him to winnie the pooh. I think it betrays a fundamental cognitive bias - that this must have all happened due to the leaders and higher ups demanding it be taken down and it couldn't be anything else. Or more relevantly here - that GOG succumbed to the pressure from China at an authoritative level, like being their lapdogs and doing their bidding.

Nope.

If we know anything about China at all, we know that there is huge support for almost everything the government does. Of course people will say 'brainwashing and propaganda will do that for you' , and you would of course be right. Still not changing the fact that the real reason China has such an impact, isn't because of the authoritarian government - it's because of its people and what they demand. It's the will of the 'many' chinese gamers that love their country, who say that game should be boycotted wherever. And companies of course listen to the market powers that be, they don't want that kind of trouble and heat and boycott.

So you see, it's silly to blame it on one and not the other. The other being the actual cause. Though you can ponder the causes of that cause too, of course.

Sure they can.

It's real simple. GOG can a) not bend the knee to the CCP and b) release Devotion on GOG.

There is literally nothing that China could do to prevent that from happening, should GOG choose to do that.

There is zero proof of that whatsoever.

Just because someone is from China, that does not automatically mean that they support the CCP. On the contrary: many Chinese people pro-actively oppose it. Where I live, there are large protest marches comprising of thousands of Chinese people who are marching specifically to abolish the CCP.

And they also constantly ask everyone to sign petitions for the same cause.

There is also no proof that GOG received any messages from gamers about this. And if GOG did receive messages, then there also is no proof that they were from actual people rather than government bots...much less GOG customers.

And anyway, all of that is a moot point as it relates to Devion: because even if GOG did receive messages from "many gamers" from China, that's still no excuse for GOG to ban the game anyway. If they were going to ban it, for that reason, then they could ban it for China-region customers only, and let everyone from every other region buy it.

...except push and move things around in the global market system to ensure gog goes down
or even worse things, i dunno, they are a totalitarian state and they practically control the world's economy at this point

Actually what I was implying has nothing to do with 1. That there are chinese gamers who like the game and/or do not boycott it and/or do not like their government (which is likely of course true, though says nothing about mainland Chinese support of their government), and 2. That GOG actually received little hand written hate notes from China stating they will boycott them if they release and sell the game (ha). Like, a mountain of them. An avalanche.

No. What I meant was that blaming this on the authoritarian government of CHina is misguided considering there are millions of potential customers ready to boycott anyone who criticises their country and/or government, and willing to influence others do it too.

Once again, let me re-iterate, there are millions of people that apparently of their own freewill (though of course influenced by upbringing, propaganda etc let's not go there) want this to happen this way, regardless of their leader. Or actually, in support of him. Consider for a minute how much staunch support a leader like Trump had/has - with barely denting his base popularity despite hundreds of scandals, major and minor. Now amplify that sentiment and effect by millions, if not billions. And thus you get today and today's predicament.

It's easy to pin the blame on the head of a nation, especially one that exemplifies values other than our own. But you forget what the people/customers/the mob demand. So enough of this 'GOG bends knee to China dictatorship!'. No, you lost respect for them due to them showcasing market economy capitalism, and catering to the demand of a huge amount of lucrative consumers, in China or outside, influenced by the mob's fickle nature and whim.

I didn't misrepresent what he wrote, which was vague: "That said, one thing is to do business with China, a complete different beast is to actively boycott a developer because they ask you to, for political reasons."

That sentence can easily be understood in two different ways:

1. China asked something "for political reasons".

2. GOG actively boycotts a developer "for political reasons".

Either way, to me, as a GOG customer, it is only important why GOG made the decision, as this discussion is whether "we" should boycott GOG over this decision. This discussion is not about whether we should boycott China. It wouldn't hurt the Chinese government one iota if we all stopped buying any more GOG games, it would only hurt GOG.

And as I have said, if GOG was my company, I would have probably made a similar decision in this case, because I have common sense. Some snowflake probably thinks differently as he thinks he has the whole world figured out.

That is GOG's problem, not my problem, to figure out, as it is their business, not my business. If I wanted to boycott China, then I guess I would avoid buying anything Chinese and not go to China on vacations.

You certainly have the right to boycott GOG over this if you it makes you feel important, but realistically I don't see you achieving anything useful with it. And GOG has a right to boycott developers who make it into headlines by "accidentally" adding controversial easter eggs to their games.

Everyone has the right to boycott whatever they want, wheee!

A state level DDOS attack? GoG can hardly stand upto a good sale

Leverage its various business interests against CDPR?

Officially Outlaw CDPR products, and quite literally decimate (or even higher than 10%) their income?

There is Literally a shedload of very serious things China and its agents could do with very little repercussions (see the Russian nerve agent attacks).

It's real simple

and then eu should ban all china products

Here is the sad truth, it already should have been. Not because it's China, or politically related, but for other reasons:

- It's illegal to sell slave-made products in the EU, yet we sell Chinese sweatshop items like there is no tomorrow

- Products should be made within a limit of carbon production, those exceeding should not be sold in the EU and China being the smog-capitol of the world, is likely not meeting that standard

- Being a electronics tinkerer/hacker myself, I have yet to find a single Chinese product that upholds any of the safety regulations of any sane country in the world. Yet Chinese "tech" is used and sold everywhere

i didnt even know there are such laws here , even more reasons to decouple china entirely
i wouldn't mind at all to have fewer products in result

So you are still going to do it ........ honestly, I gotta shake my head at the ridiculous drama of it all.

In the end, the only loser will be you.
You are not going to effect anything other than yourself, with your false sense of GOG doing wrong.

If you ever find a better place, come back and let us know.

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I'll say it one more time.

GOG don't owe the developers of Devotion a single thing, just like all the others they turn away for whatever reason.
It's not up to GOG to be the poster boy against China, and they likely have sound financial reasons and agreements not to consider doing so, just for any old developer, who whether rightly or wrongly, is responsible for the situation with China.

Sure GOG have been the hero for DRM-Free and certain other game related aspects, but that doesn't mean they have do everything that crops up. At the end of the day, it is the store and customers that matter, not some Developer, many of whom haven't done exactly right by GOG and its customers over the years.

So stop expecting too much. Stop holding GOG to account, for what proved to be a silly thing by the developers. They even removed the offending stuff, which in my book is even more ridiculous, and doesn't earn my respect. They poked the bear ... what were they thinking in the first place, but once done live with it ... don't pretend it never happened ... only makes you look foolish for not considering things properly in the first place. And some wanted GOG to carry that torch ... get real.

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Another way to look at this, is that GOG are selling games into China, and that has to be a good thing ... outside of the financial gain. Those games can't all be checked by China, and much of their content will have lasting effect on players there. Positive things will come out of it, perhaps eventually the changes we all want.

Why should GOG jeopardize what is overall more important.

Like I've said elsewhere, sometimes you have to join with them (to a point) or embrace them to some degree to make change, and it doesn't happen overnight.

That's an interesting thought. I once saw a documentary about Tibet, and from their perspective it wasn't military power, outright suppression that broke Tibet. No, China launched a "welfare" programme that put a TV set in every household, who couldn't afford it on their own.

Something to think about.

Just as with previous post. I stopped after a sentence.

Enjoy the high horse though, should be a fun ride.

When will you leave? You said it 9 days ago, and you are still posting here.

Devotion developers retired their game from Steam (or did Valve "invited" them to retire it?), and no other online shop sells the damn game. Why everybody blames GOG for not selling the game? Is it because it is a polish company? Why not blaming Valve or any other company for the same reason? Is Valve "bowing to a the Communist Party of another nation" because not trying to re-launch the game in almost two years?

This is capitalism in a globalized market. If a company thinks selling a product brings them more problems than revenues, it's of common sense not selling that product.

It has already been explained in this thread before:

And finally let me cite the funnier post in this thread :-):

Farewell.

Lol, what is Communism really? Was Russia or China ever Communist? Did the workers in Russia and China have control over the mean of manufacturing or even anything at all? No, they had no power at all. They were and are quite obviously fascist states masquerading as Communist.

Funny how both Capitalism and Democracy failed in Russia (just like Communism) but no one seems to be allowed to point this out. Maybe the fault isn't with the ideas but rather, the country.