AB2012: I'm simply bewildered at the level of PR fail here. Everyone on the planet knows when a cluster of angry Chinese bloggers magically appear out of nowhere on the same day, all saying the same thing in the same way that just happens to "conincide" with the foreign policy of the CCP (especially anything involving Taiwan), that it's bought & paid for "50 Cent Army" / "rentablog" (what China's government regularly boasts as "soft power"). The smart move would have been for GOG to simply completely ignore it and at least appear "too incompetent to respond" (you know, like they do posts on GOG's forum...). The dumbest possible move would have been to create a fake excuse like
"gamers themselves demanded it" that's so painfully transparent you could re-glaze a greenhouse with it...
At the same time the hot mess that is Cyberpunk 2077, combined with an epic fail level of technical support for failing to process the MANY recent refund requests here for said game has already left a sour enough taste of "The GOG Experience" in the mouths of many coming to GOG as new potential long-term customers, that I suspect many are going to refund it and turn around and head back to Steam vowing 'never again'. What a crazy wasted opportunity at growing the store...
toxicTom: Well someone suggested that this move was to distract from the CP launch... (I admit it: I like the game so far, even on my lowly machine, so there's that), but I don't believe GOG is that clever.
I think
a) Maybe Tencent put pressure on Epic who in turn put pressure on GOG (Epic store in Galaxy) or something like that, and/or
b) GOG in all their glorious competence we've all experienced really somehow didn't know about the controversy surrounding this game in China and when after the announcement the first million complaints came in someone quickly googled the issue and went all pale, and/or
c) CDP group has a lot of chinese investors (more than 60% are publicly traded) who were not amused, and/or
d) They are genuinely afraid to lose something on the Chinese market - which is huge, but I don't how much of a foothold GOG had there. There are a few active Chinese users here on the forum, and there could be a ton of customer who might be pissed off by the game.
Fact is, this is one of the worst cases of "handling a situation" GOG ever pulled. Headless chicken could have done it better.
Fact is also that the Chinese, who went through a lot of suffering, but also achieved a lot in the last years and decades, are genuinely proud of their country and leadership, and lack a sense of humour in that regard.
And they're not the only ones. Post "DRM-free #wontbeerased" on Twitter and watch yourself get turn apart, in the o so free "West".
Make a few jokes about Trump and be the rest of your life afraid some crazed Trumpist shows up at your front door with a gun.
We're different, but we're not better.
I'm sure Winnie is on his way to personally congratulate you with bonus social credit score points, "gamers" couldn't have put it better.