Tell me then.. what would you do to make GOG change and become once more the drm free game store, that they were back in the day?

Period.

Indeed, more humans needed on payroll.

Or a couple of penitent monks :)

Honestly I wouldn't surprised if the "gamer" part was actually true.

Let's remember that China has one of the biggest PC gaming market in the world and a lot of said gamers rely on Steam, Gog & Co to be in a legal gray area to be able to get their games. Also given also that, with the new China friendly Steam-version, a lot of Chinese Gamer are afraid that it will mean losing access to the "standard" uncensored Steam, so still having access to Gog would become even more important for them.

With all that it wouldn't be too far fetched to think that, with the announcement of Devotion being released on Gog, especially on Chinese social media (stupid idea I agree), then when you add the nationalists and the "normal" Chinese gamers who were just afraid to lose access to Gog, then it is definitely possible that Gog actually receive a tons of messages from Chinese gamers and that it was what trigger their decision.

Pretty much this. Though I, while I think the CP77 release played a big role (and it seems to be pretty popular in China), it's also the access to the Chinese market for GOG in general - it's simply huge. And Epic already have their foot in that door with the 10cent partnership, while Steam is busy rolling out their (even-more-)censorship client there.

Also I think that "series of unfortunate events" happened because GOG has... less competent... PR "bulbs" than they should have in the first place, and then there's the pandemic with lockdown and homeoffice - managing work with less than optimal communication to the rest of the company while maybe even entertaining/educating your kids is difficult, I can tell you...

I'd be eager to see what kind of numbers they're currently doing in China. I'd agree that the *potential* is huge. But the actual numbers were probably small enough until fairly recently that gog neglected the Chinese market to the point of their website being completely unusable.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_in_china/page1
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/now_the_gog_website_directly_download_link_is_also_not_working_from_china

They did change the website quite a bit in recent years and now it's perfectly functional (to the point of - arguably - being better than the non-Chinese website, due to getting rid of all the google integration: No youtube vids on game pages, no google Craptcha when you try to redeem a gift code). I'm still not convinced that their Chinese numbers are worth alienating the rest of the world for.

You all keep forgetting that GOG partnered with Epic Games, which is 38% owned by Tencent. Hello?

As I said before, we have no idea what was in that agreement between Epic and GOG but they found it more important than Devotion. They figured the Epic deal would be more profitable. So I will say it again:

GOG will have to make a tough decision. They will either de-partner with Epic or lose even more respect from customers around the world. But if they de-partner with Epic and release Devotion, then they'll forfeit whatever perks came with their agreement to Epic games, like having exclusive publisher deals, for example. It is a very difficult decision and it has more to do with the agreement that GOG made with Epic, not the CCP. If you don't realize this, then you have not been paying attention.

That'd be interesting to know, true.

Right now GOG should be an obvious choice for Chinese customers, because if they backup their installers (like everybody should), there is no risk involved, even if GOG got blocked someday. DRM-free ftw :-)

Like Gerson wrote above - if I were a Chinese Steam gamer I'd be pretty worried about what happens to my library when Steam China is enforced.

You act as if the Chinese people aren't aware of this. I've watched a documentary on China under the CCP. The CCP controls all of their media, they only hear what China wants and they have censored internet that doesn't even allow them to look up topics like democracy, for example. Chinese gamers are fully prepared for what Steam China will do and they'll accept it. If the CCP blocked GOG, they would consider it for the good of China. It would be accused of spreading Taiwanese propaganda by the CCP and that would be it. No more GOG and China wouldn't miss it. But that whole market would be gone.

Keep in mind, the Tianenmen Square meme is real there. If you even mention it, the person gets booted off by the CCP. Chinese gamers will accept whatever the CCP tells them.

"Ah, games are missing out of my library. They were probably propaganda and would defame Great China, so I am okay with this."

In China the internet connection is going mostly via mobile. Due to large regional discrepancy it's a mobile-centric nation, as a result in 2019 96% new games launched in china were mobile games. Also the country internet penetration rate in 2018 was 58%. PC gaming is in china maybe an interesting market in the future, mostly due to growth, but still now it's not so big as you may think. The whole "gamers from China who worry about their access to games" story makes no sense, especially for a more niche store like GOG.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/276488/internet-users-in-china-by-connection-type/
https://www.statista.com/topics/1179/internet-usage-in-china/#dossierSummary__chapter2
https://www.statista.com/topics/4642/gaming-in-china/

Also I don't have any actual numbers regarding gog user-base, but as far is I remember the biggest share (with a really big gap) came from the USA and then europe. But that's some years old and likely have changed.

I might be getting too conspiratorial here, but it's this series of events that leaves me with a lot of questions. So one or two staff members fluent in Chinese advertise the release on Weibo, and the response is supposedly so bad that the staff members are able to convince management within hours to cancel the global release instead of just not making it available for sale in China? There's got to be some other contacts that reached out to GOG, there's no way they just made this decision on the interpretation of some comments on Weibo.

It's important to note exactly what happened with Devotion in China. This was taken from a Eurogamer article written in February of 2019. It explains the circumstances that led up to a fierce review bombing of the game which eventually got it banned in China. However, it was actually well-received at first.

"At first, the game become extremely popular in the gaming channels in Chinese community," wrote ResetEra user SushiReese.

"Most of the streamers stream the game, millions of viewers watched the game playthrough. The game also receive universal praise from the media, it even become a trending topic in Chinese social media. The public give extremely positive feedback.

"However, after some users from Taiwan PTT and gaming forum post some screenshots related to OP mentioned and mocked that the game successfully fooled the mainlander into supporting a game to 'mock PRC people and KMT supporters (who tend to unify with China)'. It attract more attention when people dip deeper into the game.

"The anger transfer to outrage when people discover that the founder/lead designer's social media, he holds a pro-Taiwan independent political view and make quite a few political posts."

So the real issue here, is that people from the Taiwanese boards were making fun of the fact that they got China interested in a game that openly mocks it. That's where the controversy started. Even though the game was at first very popular in China and not at all seen as a threat until the Taiwanese gamers basically started drama over it.

So yes, I 100% believe that these are Chinese gamers. Judging from the facts and evidence surrounding what happened to the game in China, we can deduce that these same gamers were against it for the same reason. And unfortunately, the whole thing is Taiwan's fault, because those gamers made fun of the Chinese for embracing a game that openly mocks them.

This isn't even about access to games. This is about the sheer fact that they don't want Devotion sold anywhere. It seems to fill them with anger and resentment. Adding to that, the developers thoughts towards a country that embraced the product.

Just because statista happens to state that most Chinese gaming is mobile, that does not mean that all Chinese gaming is mobile. We're talking about a country who went head over heels into the MMO market. People died playing MMOs. So PC gaming is still a thing over there. And they still like to stream games, mobile internet or not. China has it's own version of Twitch if I am not mistaken. And if the game became that popular on Chinese social media as the user states, then it makes perfect sense that most Chinese gamers were aware of it.

Produced by Fox News?

Seriously, it's not that simple. A colleague of mine has lived and worked in China for several years, thousands of Chinese students attend universities in Germany alone. And while those are certainly all from upper-class, privileged families, I've never met any flag-waving "all hail the great leader" type. Idk if you have those too, if so, try to talk to them.

There is censorship, yes, and there's the uncanny feeling of being under observation all the time (that was, according to my colleague, the most unpleasant thing to deal with). But other than that, the Chinese are just normal people, who - like anybody else - love to complain about officials and governments. There are certain taboo topics, and lines you cannot cross (complaining is fine, calling to action will get you into trouble). But the Chinese are not some mindless drones blindly digging any propaganda the government throws at them, like you make them out to be. It seems to me that you instead fell for propaganda here - which is kind of ironic, don't you think?

If games disappear from libraries, Chinese gamers will be as pissed as anybody else would be. There's just not much they can do about it.