Dear friends of GOG,

I'm an empathic guy. Really. I am not the type of angry person who spends all day on the internet practicing hate speech or igniting arguments. I believe in dialogue and the possibility of collective construction. This is one of my maxims in life. That said, allow me: I know it must not be easy for you what has happened!

Problems involving Cyberpunk are everywhere, and I was there defending CDPR employees for finding disgusting crunch practices, but I am also the guy who will repudiate any and all censorship practices, and from there we come to the episode of "Devotion ".

It is not just today that you, the GOG team, have received criticism about the lack of transparency in your actions. We still do not know what kind of methodology you use to approve or not a game in the store or because you try to push the galaxy as something mandatory (even selling the idea of ​​being optional), for example. These things, in general, don't bother me so much. I keep finding you the best digital PC game store and I will not abandon you due to the latest events, but you MUST recognize that you made a mistake, and made an UGLY mistake with one of the most insolent and insane justifications I've ever seen in this medium.

GOG, I know you can't talk about it, but I speak for you: dealing with the Chinese government and its censorship laws is not easy. We know, GOG. We know. And it is understandable that you should have given up releasing a game under the penalty of what we assume to be some kind of sanction that prevents CDPR from selling its products in one of the largest economies in the world. I am also empathetic about this, and I reiterate that it is certainly an equally difficult situation for you, but pay attention to the narrative you have created: blaming the players, THE PLAYERS, GOG, your CLIENTS, to justify the cancellation of a game.

Do you have public relations on your staff? If they don't, I advise hiring one immediately, otherwise I suggest rethinking this employee, because surely he or she is performing this role in the worst possible way. It is really pathetic from a communicational point of view.

Look at the tsunami of negative feedback that you have been receiving, not necessarily for going back on the launch of Devotion around here, but for the primary way in which you interact with your customers.

Honestly, you could have managed this situation in multiple ways. They could, for example, have said something like "Look, guys, unfortunately we had some problems launching Devotion around here, so we apologize to the developer and our customers for what happened. We will work hard so that in the future we can resolve this situation". Do you see how easy it would be? You would not need to mention objectively why, as we understand that this would compromise you, but the form and content of the message that you published was basically calling us, your customers, dumb. Sorry, but this is the reality!

Yes, it is likely that there would be reactions and manifestos in the same way, but the intensity would be a thousand times less, because at least you would have given us a message like "we are sad about this and we understand you". There would be a degree of empathy on our part, do you understand?

Unfortunately, and nevertheless, you managed to make matters worse by requiring the moderators of the GOG page on Reedit to remove the flag of China as soon as, which they added only temporarily to legitimately protest the situation.

Error after error, you managed to create an unrestrained train that grows more and more every minute, and tarnishes the good reputation that you have had the effort to build during the last years.

You cannot correct the error. What happened, happened, but you need to be humble enough to, as I said before, recognize that you were wrong in approach, in form and in content, so that in the future we will be able to re-establish degrees of trust and respect for you, which have collapsed a lot in past hours.

I apologize for the harsh words, but this is the manifestation of someone who is not only a customer of the store, but also wants you to grow more and more.

Reflect!

@CDProjekt, I will never buy anything from this site again if you don't at least walk back your statement that this release was cancelled due to complaints from "gamers" in general. Is Winnie The Pooh really scarier to y'all than Phil Fish who demanded y'all take down a Postal 2 expansion he didn't like or else he'd pull his game (Fez) from your storefront.

Caving to outrage mobs is the worst form of DRM; it's a genuine shame to see one of the few sites that previously had a strong FCK DRM stance walk it back as soon as a certain world leader gets offended.

You can check my account to see that I have been a loyal GOG customer (since the days when the site was still called Good Old Games) with over 800 games purchased on your site, if you'd like to verify any of the claims I made in this post, and I guarantee if you don't walk back your incredibly disrespectful statement that "gamers" don't want this game on the store, you'll never see another cent out of me.

I agree GOG should be honest about why they did what they did, and just accept that there is no way they can make it not be bad situation, sunlight is the best disinfectant. A turd is a turd no matter how much glitter you throw on it.

While is was incredibly disrespectful and dishonest of GOG to blame "gamers" not wanting Devotion on the site when it is obvious it was due to pressure from the corrupt Chinese government propaganda machine and fear of losing access to that market, especially when it is obvious that the real gamers have spoken here and elsewhere that they are all disgusted with these practices, BUT what you said OP may require some rethinking.

From what I understand from your post, you are suggesting that next time GOG has to do this, they just spin it in such a way it is neutral and non-offensive to anybody with better PR. I'm sorry OP, but that is still LIES AND DECEPTION.

The negative feedback has been INEXTRICABLY TIED to the launch of Devotion, not as you put it "not necessarily for going back on the launch of Devotion around here, but for the primary way in which you interact with your customers."

You want to know what I value most when dealing with a company? The COLD HARD TRUTH, not PR vomit. I want GOG to recognize WHAT and WHY they did, not try to spin it in such a way that they FOOL people into thinking it was something else.

I also especially value companies that stick to their principles. People hate this because they feel GOG betrayed its principles, not because they didn't use doublespeak better to trick their customers into thinking it wasn't such a gigantic dumpster fire of a decision. People are not idiots, OP, they can see through this crap very easily.

I strongly oppose GOG's decision, and I want it reversed. But if they can't do that, at least don't encourage them to not even take responsibility by spinning what they did in a more positive light. This world needs less doublespeak and more truth as it is.

Agreed.

Congrats cdpr for throwing away principles for money.
Way to bend the knee to one of the biggest human rights abusers in the world. A country that has no problem rounding up Muslims and putting them in concentration camps.
A country with a one child policy that has no problem forcing it's citizens to abort babies because they happen to be a girl.

A country that is responsible for helping spread a virus and lying about how deadly it was which has lead to a global pandemic.

I thought Poland had enough of being under the influence and bending the knee to Communists, when they were controlled by the Soviet Union.

Poland has only been free from Communism for 31 years, it's sad to see a Polish company willingly bow down to a Communists country just because they have lots of money.

Sorry if my point is not clear to you. I made a point of taking a full position on this shameful episode, but I am also not naive to the point of not putting myself in the company's position in the sense that, in fact, whether or not the Chinese market is huge and a possible ban on CDPR over there would have immense financial consequences.

That's disgusting? I have no doubt! It is agonizing, disgusting and causes a feeling of helplessness, so my message warned of the following "Okay, we understand how immense the size of this shit is, but at least don't be such a scoundrel in blaming the players".

I wonder what would have happened if they had come forward with "We're sorry, but we can't release Devotion. The game causes political trouble in China which is an important market we can't miss. Also getting blocked in China would mean our valued Chinese customers would lose access to their games."

Same thing most likely.

Yes, but at least they would be noble in presenting a fact and not blaming OWN CLIENTS.

I keep finding this the height of insanity!

It's clear what happened: the CCP threatened to cut off CDPR's access to the lucrative market in China if CDPR dared to list a game on GOG that the CCP has blacklisted. CDPR made this decision for one simple reason: money. Very few companies have "principles" beyond "make as much money as possible." CDPR has shown itself to be no different than most in this regard. Writing heartfelt expressions of disappointment in CDPR while also stating that you'll continue to support the company is telling them exactly what they want to hear. CDPR has made it clear that it's only concerned about money. To get their attention, they'll need to suffer financial consequences for their cowardice. To me, that means never purchasing another game through the GOG store. I already deactivated my ActiBlizz account. GOG is just another dead body on the pile now as far as I'm concerned.

What never ceases to amuse and confound me is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. The 'victim' refuses to accept the views of others and their rights but demands their own be respected and obeyed.

Regardless of who they are, what power they have etc these arrogant scumbag's deserve to be put in their place.

It's a shame gog doesn't have the convictions they claimed repeatedly to have, mind you now they're in bed with Epic games who have already shown their allegiance maybe it's a sign of things to come... A potential merger maybe.

Pathetic sellouts.

Suppose I stop shopping here, now, where am I going to buy? Or do you think Steam and Epic are "fragrant"? In this case it is not optional, we are talking about the "less worst".

For many though this isn't just a "single issue". It's more like a "Perfect Storm" of chronic mis-management that's resulting in a "Straw that broke the camel's back" effect:-

- GOG didn't just remove a Taiwanese game from the store due to pressure from China...

- ...they doubled down on stupid by blaming "gamers" for removal despite what was obviously political pressure by China via "50 Cent Army" proxy 'bloggers' that everyone (except GOG) can clearly see, insulting everyone's intelligence in the process...

- ... And did so immediately on the back of a bad launch of CDPR's flagship game Cyberpunk 2077...

- ... To which many are seeking refunds for only to find out that GOG's once excellent customer service is now possibly the worst of all stores (far longer to issue refunds than Steam, Ubisoft or Origin), and they seem to have the same amount of full-time support staff for a store of 4,000x games selling however many millions of units of CDPR games that they did back when they were a store of 400 games. Many people new to GOG due to Cyberpunk are saying "This is the first and last game I'm buying here" due to the customer service "experience". What could have been a great opportunity to bring more people here is fast turning into an "avoid this store at all costs at the moment" PR nightmare.

- On top of that, many GOG customers are already disillusioned about the potential impact of GOG selling Epic games via Galaxy, especially with GOG's own moderators tweeting about the future being selling DRM'd games via Galaxy...

- On top of that, many GOG customers are already disillusioned about the increasingly obvious "2nd class citizen" treatment of offline installers (out of date installers, needing Galaxy to access 'bonus content' in single-player games, refusing to provide the last good prior versions of offline installers for some games where the newest version is buggy, no pre-loading for CP2077 despite doing it for Witcher 2 & 3, gating free games that were formerly given out as offline installers behind Galaxy, etc)

- On top of that, many GOG customers are already disillusioned about the other "2nd class citizen" treatment of GOG releases as a whole vs Steam (missing updates vs Steam, lack of features / languages, no Linux builds, etc)

^ Any one of these is annoying. Everything combined though all seems to have converged to a point a time where this store really is struggling to get the basics right on almost anything to such an alarming degree that a lot of people clearly feel that it's no longer possible to blindly give GOG "the benefit of the doubt for being the underdog" until they attempt to at least begin to show they intend to turn one thing on above list around, let alone actually address all of them...

I agree GOG should be a bit more upfront about why they do certain things, but the over the top posts in this thread just prove that the reputation the GOG forums have for endless whining is deserved.

It is really unfortunate how things have changed since I originally signed up for a GOG account back in 2011. At that point, I was very impressed with GOG not only because of the work they put in to secure older games and get these older games working on modern systems but also because of the principles that they touted on the website.

As we have seen, one by one these principles were abanonded. Now they only have the pillar of DRM-free which is not necessarily true of some of their single player offerings (No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk having digital items locked behind Galaxy). Their commitment to DRM-free gaming is also questionable at best when we have the promotion of DRM'd stores through Galaxy and outdated offline installers in addition to issues mentioned by others on the forums.

This controversy regarding their pullling Devotion from sale and then subsequently putting the blame on "gamers", however, was the final straw for me. Their communication with their fans and users of this site/forum has already been abysmal compared to the past. I just didn't expect them to fall back on that as an excuse. I will continue playing the games that I have bought on here over the years but I won't be supporting GOG financially anymore.