And don't forget the free Brigador.

"We give you free game, you forget bad things that happened? Yes?"

XD

Here's the joke. It didn't.

It sold over 13 million units since its release. And that's not counting the refunded sales, and not counting the 8 million pre-orders.

Except Morgan Stanley downgraded their stock (which has been in freefall since the game released). The expected sales figures were around 16.5mil and they've only seen 13mil sold - under-performing not by a little bit.

The game may be profitable but we don't know by how much. And definitely less then what was expected. And the longer this goes the bigger the hole. Sales will slow down, game price goes down not up. And more & more resources are being tied to fixing rather than new content (which means more money lost). It's not been a good release and while it recovered the development cost [maybe] - the value of the company isn't on what it is making *now*, it's on what it can and should be making tomorrow. And I think things are pointing towards issues next year with CDP SA.

I'm not saying things are going perfectly for them. It's a messy launch and a PR disaster. I just wanted to correct the idea of the game "bombing". Sure, they hoped for a better launch, but the game still sold well (and the development cost was covered by the pre-orders alone). The Internet's official language is hyperbole. That's why the hype for the game was so huge, and that's why now it's being presented as some total catastrophy.

Maybe i was being hyperbolic. CP2077 is the new Death Stranding. I hear it even has the product placement.

A full week now. A full week of being ignored at every turn. Nice work, GOG, way to show your customers that you care.

If only there were "many gamers"™ requesting a reply. But no, it's just their regular userbase who always bought games here and supported them for years, so nothing as important as the CCP shills or social media never-touched-a-game asshats .

BTW Devotion currently has 8172 votes on the wishlist. Nothing much, obviously. I wonder how many messages Gog got from "many gamers"™?

Seriously Gog, this is the most pathetic you've ever been. This silence speaks volumes about how much you value your current customers.

Someone made a horror game that pissed of China, and no one has been insane enough to risking being banned in China over it. This shocks you? Do you honestly think whatever sales this game would get could possibly be more valuable than the damage done if they put the game up and the Chinese government retaliates somehow? Just banning GOG in China would do far more harm then one game could reasonably be expected to compensate for.

No, what shocks some of us is how GOG seemed to think it was a good idea to post about it to chinese run social media before the release was scheduled.

It's possible...china is a big market, but there is a bigger COMBINED worldwide market for games.

Heck, look at how south park gave china the middle finger and cut ties there. They seem to still be doing well.

V-p-n-s are a thing, you know....chinese people could still get the games by "moving to another country to buy them".

I'd be a little less upset, at the least.

Of course, if people wanna complain and criticize GOG a bit(preferably civilly), I am ok with it.

1: Yeah posting about it on social media, much less Chinese social media, was a very bad idea. They should have just put it up on the store with no more fanfare then any other game, or release it as part of a bundle of horror games and not do anything special to draw attention.

2a :Would the number of people who want this game be higher then the number of GOG customers in China though? Sure there are many more gamers in the rest of the world but only a fraction of them would want this game.

2b : Would sales of the game outweigh the total sales lost if China retaliated?

3a: VPNs cost money.

3b: Are VPNs legal in China? Because that sounds like something they would ban there to me honestly.

Agreed....which is why the claim that GOG was smart because they delisted Devotion makes less sense....if they are smart they would have done as you said or similar to that.

(tbh I think it was either a lower level staffer who thought they knew better about how to do such things, or the higher up's greed overrode common sense & they allowed the advertising/pr staff to post it anyways)

There are over 8000 votes for the game(and since many don't bother voting for such things, the actual number of people who might've voted for the game is likely higher).....if even a fraction bought it it would likely outweigh the complaints they got, that alone likely would've outweighed the ones who claimed they would've boycotted the store had GOG sold the game.

(also it's likely that some of the ones complaining likely weren't going to boycott if GOG decided to sell the game)

If china blocked GOG, chinese citizens likely still would've "moved" to buy games from GOG anyways... making such moves by the CCP near pointless.

They're like 5 bucks a month for basic plans....and well worth it for many people.

They likely aren't....but many use them anyways to get around the great firewall.
(for things including buying games and media their govt doesn't want them to have)

My email to GOG just now:

--

Ever since GOG pulled Devotion and lied about the reasons (blaming "gamers" even though the thousands of comments about this on social media, from gamers, for weeks, are all asking for the game - obviously GOG was lying about the reason), many of us long term customers and supporters have been angry at GOG for the decision, the lying, and (on top of that) the continuing silence.
GOG has not replied to any of the thousands of social media comments and posts about this.
That actually goes against your own policy on your website:
Direct contact with GOG Team
"Have a question, need help or you just want to talk about great PC games? Reach out on GOG forums, tweet at us or drop us a message on Facebook, and we'll get back to you."
GOG has not got back to any of the thousands of commenters, so that's a further lie to your customers.
As with many others, I have changed my policy.
- I refunded any orders from the last 30 days (first ever refund)
- Deleted my GOG wishlist
- Didn't buy anything in the sale
- Made sure I spoke about this on social media.
I won't be buying from GOG again until you sort this out (nor will I buy CD Project games like Cyberpunk from another store).
As others have said, I have enough games to last me a lifetime already here, on Steam, and on Itch (probably hundreds that I haven't played yet). For the first time in two years I bought games in Steam's Winter Sale (and none in GOG's). Steam is shit and I know it, so I have low expectations and am not disappointed. Gog seriously disappointed me.
Unless this gets resolved I'll go back to how I was a few years ago and get all my games on Steam (if heavily discounted, to make up for the DRM) and Itch (full price if indie and DRM-free).
(Oh, and to top it off, GOG threatened me with closing my Forum account because I posted about the Devotion issue and they vaguely said it broke their forum guidelines.)
It's weird how a company can have a super-loyal customer, and via a number of bad decisions that they double down on, make that customer so angry that they lose all their goodwill and will no longer recommend them or support them.
I've no idea how to get all this alienation noticed by the people at GOG who have the power to change anything. If those in charge of GOG were doing their job properly they would be aware of all this already, and would have resolved the situation (and if they were competent they'd have avoided it in the first place). But, just in case the decisions are made by people who don't pay attention to the public mood, this really needs forwarding to them. The board and senior directors should be passed all the comments, emails, posts, blog posts, forum posts, Tweets, Facebook comments etc on this issue so they can see how much they have upset people.
It's still not too late to fix it.
All they have to do is release Devotion (as agreed);
give an honest explanation (not the disingenuous tweet) as to how it happened and who was responsible for the policy and ensuing silence (since it is obvious GOG staff have been told not to comment, by someone higher up who just wants the issue to go away) and apologise for lying about "gamers" when the obvious real reason is adoption of Chinese censorship; and make sure you have policies in place against lying to your customers.
Please pass that on to the senior GOG staff. At present I can't tell if they are oblivious to the situation (which would suggest a huge level of ineptitude and unsuitability for the role), or if they enjoy lying to and insulting the intelligence of their long-term customers (which is reprehensible).

Doesn't seem like it yet? Is there any reason to believe that they were bullied into the decision, or was it simple capitulation to ccp sensibilities, and thus censorship for the rest of ut in order to keep that market?
I don't believe I will stick around anymore if the latter.