kohlrak: This is the fundamental issue with a global economy: because china got offended, countries where free speech is an axiomatic right (it's certainly not principled), this is unacceptable. This is a tangible reminder that we done goofed with putting too much trust into too many centralized places. If these businesses were smaller, this would not be an issue.
SumofOne: First getting offended means nothing. There is no reason others not sharing your sensitivities should cater to you.
If GOG had a game incoming that every single one of us hated and screamed about i don't think GOG should EVER reply with "ok we won't put it up then". The correct answer is "ok, don't buy it, no one is forcing you".
Grown adults should be free to decide what they want to play or buy, not protected and shelter like children by services and governments. Authoritarianism is what treats adults like children.
Second, China isn't offended. Their little sensitive dictator is, that believes this little meme decreases his powerful image.
I bet most of the Chinese people could care less.
The truth is that Cyberpunk being a buggy mess or releasing before it was ready is millions of times less important than catering to the sensitivities of a dictator that abuses his people. And now this actions help him abuse even people in other countries by forcing us to not be able to play or buy something we may be interested.
GoG and all the other stores are basically helping him censor people other than his own. It is a tragedy that he censors and controls his people like that but it is even more ridiculous that he is getting empowered to do so to people from other nations.
Long story short, Cyberpunk bad release should damage CDPR image a lot less than this move and it is sad that more fuss is being made about a buggy game or bad game than actually helping authoritarian regimes and practices. Every person should be screaming about GOG and Steam and Epic and consoles etc not hosting this game dozens of times more than their Cyberpunk copy giving them a blue screen.
I can easily forgive CDPR over a bad game. It is a long harder to forgive support of authoritarians ways though when that is literally the plague that torches humanity since ever.
I'm going to take a really unpopular stance, here, based on my experience with dealing with people from mainland china: they are responsible for their government, just in the same way you or I are responsible for ours. While I know it's not every chinese person, it is enough to be the majority. If enough people band together, no government can control the populace. Look at the George Floyd riots in the US, and all the people flouting mask rules. Let's face it, the handling of coronavirus itself in the US was an attempt at authority figures to feel good after the 2016 election was all about giving the middle-finger to authority. The authority figures clearly showed they don't actually care how SARS-CoV-2 affects us (Remember, closing the border is racist, 'cause there's no evidence of human to human transmission, according to the World Health Organization; masking is pointless, so you shouldn't be buying masks, according to US officials; etc. My personal favorite is the Pennsylvania Department of Health stating that employers are permitted to require that workers return to work both positive and symptomatic), so why would anyone follow the rules when they don't have a clue what is and isn't true about the thing. Meanwhile, I've been keeping close tabs on my girlfriend since wednesday, because she actually has the thing, and her case is constantly getting worse. Now we know these authoritarian fucks care about their power, but notice they aren't bothering to enforce it? It's because they can't, even after what they got away with in this last election, despite video evidence (i'll admit i don't know what extent the fraud was, but they're getting away with claiming there was none despite video proof of actual election violations). I'm ready to blame the chinese citizenry as a whole, even for their plight.
It's not like they're so afraid that they can't do anything. The quarantine blockade bustings are actually happening, here and there, in mainland china. Surprise, people are willing to fight for something, even old women, once you have nothing to threaten them with anymore ('cause they otherwise starve ot death or whatever each individual case is for the individiuals in the bustings). At the end of the day, it's just like any western country: it's not bad enough for enough people to break their apathy and raise a stink. The CCP knows it lacks the capacity to deal with a mass uprising, which is why it always cracks down on what it can and always tries to focus so much on it's image. I mean, common, how much do you think anyone really cares about Winnie the Pooh, there? It's not even about the offense, it's about their lack of power to do much about it. Imagine if even 10% of beijing learned the theme song and had a nice little get-together to sing it. They wouldn't be able to do much of anything, and it would be so ridiculously damaging to the CCP that there'd be massive infighting and scrambling to protect individual images that the dog-eat-dog mentality would be visible for years to come.
