This is my last straw with CDPR. Cumulative stuff, they lived long enough to become the villain.
Just wish we could be honest about it. I guarantee no Fans or Gamers sent a protest email on this. I find the reason given more insulting than the action especially when it so blatantly obvious. Respect for these guys is fading by the minute.
There’s no shortage of Real Fans or Gamers in china, and no reason to assume they’re more level-headed than gamers in other countries. I’m sure some of the anger is “organic” rather than manufactured.
It would be nice if some company told these people where they can stick their outrage, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
The whole situation sounds like a Cyberpunk scenario. We’ve got bots, dystopia, hackers, software, moral bankruptcy, corporate reboicness, mohawks, body modification…
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I just had to check to see if Tencent is invested in CDPR after this news. Doesn’t seem like they are, but the possibility was present.
I see your point, but I think you’re overreacting.
I guess but even Trump supporters wouldn’t boycot a game with a silly picture of him in it comparing him to a baby or something. At least not with enough mass to effect action like this. I mean they haven’t boycotted twitter yet.
Let’s not pretend this anything but China pushing.
edit to add quote from PC gamer:
This wasn’t just a case of an online argument that got out of hand: the game’s Chinese publisher, Indievent, soon afterwards had its business license revoked, while the Taiwanese publisher Winking Entertainment also quietly backed off. Amid fears that the game was being scrubbed out of history, Harvard University stepped in to ensure Devotion and the studio’s previous game Detention were preserved in its East Asia collection.
Some powerful gamer outrage they got there in China…
Pro-tip for indie developers: don’t use placeholder graphics making fun of the President of China. I mean, Trump is right there and he doesn’t give a shit! [Damn, ninja’d by 2 minutes.]
Ugh, these China stories always seem like a no-win situation. Maybe one day they’ll join world society and we’ll all look back and laugh.
Red Candle Games is a Taiwanese video game developer based in Taipei, Taiwan.
I don’t think Trump matters as much to them.
True, but that’s why we pick safe bad guys in our media like those dastardly Russians. There’s no chance for anyone to get offended!
I don’t think “China pushing western companies to fall in line” and “Ordinary video gamers in mainland china getting angry over criticism of the government” are contradictory. The government has lot of power over its subjects and encourages them to act and think in certain ways. And a lot of people in any country are going to take an insult to a political leader as a personal insult to themselves.
I do agree that from GOG’s perspective the threat of being banned by the government is certainly a bigger concern.
How about this as contradictory:
“The government has lot of power over its subjects and encourages them to act and think in certain ways.”
“Ordinary video gamers in mainland china getting angry over criticism of the government”
So are they really outraged or just falling in line due to fear and brain washing? I love the word “encourages”. Not sure that means the same thing in China you think it does in this context.
If it was just this, yeah , it would be an overreaction.
Usually it takes a bunch of things for me to get to that point, a lot of the Cyberpunk stuff was pretty awful too, as well as the social media stuff from two years ago- so I was really on the verge already.
Odd, EA still has it with my Origin EA Play access.
This decision is incredibly disappointing. I was thrilled last night when I read the news Devotion would be coming to GOG, and I’ve heard nothing but great things about the game. I can’t recall another company that managed to squander as much goodwill as CDPR have this past week. :(
We’re arguing over some pretty vague distinctions. The media and political discourse in China are tightly controlled, so you could argue that in the end it all comes back to same few people in Beijing. But the point I was trying to make is that just because a government is a dictatorship doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some popular support.
A probably large chunk of Chinese people hold views in line with the opinions they are legally allowed to have. Certainly enough people to make some noise about a video game without needing state run troll farms.
“Gamers complaining”.
Sure.
Mass bot based emails seems more likely…
Interesting!
I’ll have to mull that one over since opinions tend to be formed through social influence and China is all about controlling… social influence. I’m sure they “encourage” them to form their own though and to speak out about it. They love that.