That may be, but i don't see them banning the word 那个 like they're trying to ban pooh jokes. Even if they did have that level of reciprocation, that would only slightly placate me, because i don't think a global society is tenable, let alone admirable.

Thank you for all your comments in this thread, they explain quite a lot.

The obvious solution is just to have different storefronts for some countries. GOG already has the technology to do that. Games were censored in Australia or Germany before, and they could handle it. They have regional pricing too.

I also think that's what happened.

If you don't mind one more question: have you seen GOG's announcements on Weibo (https://weibo.com/gogcom) regarding this game?

Apparently there was a post announcing the release, later deleted. Do you know what the reaction to that was?

First of all, Steam never removed the game.

Second of all, that quoted statement strongly contradicts itself and is therefore nonsense.

Within that statement, you are trying two deliver two different, completely antithetical messages:

1. You are asserting that the Chinese government is not at fault and is benevolent and blameless and pure and innocent, because they didn't directly ask GOG to ban the game.

2. You are also asserting that GOG had to ban the game to "ensure their interests"...which is a euphemism that means "GOG felt they needed to ban the game, because they fear that if they did not, then they would make the Chinese government angry with them."

So...my point is, your second premise completely disproves your first one.

No, you see, China has a hive mind. Everyone in china agrees with the same thing, because of their amazing ability to make the best decisions unanimously at all times without any dissonance.

Thanks for responding. Can you explain what you mean by "everyone agreed?" Everyone agreed the game should not be released and told them so? Or do you mean something else?

Appreciate it.

No, that option isn't possible with the CCP. That is precisely why this is concerning. If GOG actually cared about the chinese sensibilities, i could just chalk this up to SJW-nonsense and virtue signalling. However, even the SJWs are siding with the non-SJW crowd on this one, because we all know this isn't about hurting feelings, it's about cucking to a regime that focuses first on information control (anti-free speech policies). While the SJWs, in particular, or not necessarily pro-free-speech, they like to think that they are, and they also know that their usual statements would never fly if China took over social media. For most countries, it is enough that something is unavailable in their own country. However, China and a certain few other countries don't adopt the same mentality. China, however, is the only one of enough importance to have any power to enforce this.

I must have missed all the mainstream "comedy" shows making Obama a monkey. That's another name for regime censorship and worse. So censorship and repression is bad in china but great in the UK.

I'm glad you caught that, too. The mask is slipping.
I wouldn't agree, but we know where it's coming from. I've heard talk of "bringing social credit score to the west," as well. It seems we're on that track.

Yes, everyone supports removing the game

Everyone?

Edit: What are your feelings regarding this speech?

And please, everyone, let him speak for himself on this. It's a trap question. There is no way he can respond to this and continue to say the same thing.

Great to know all that. Is there a link you could share? Or maybe a screenshot?

One aspect of the discussion here is that GOG told everyone there were "many messages" but did not show any. So I think many people would be interested to see the actual conversation that took place.


Regarding some earlier comments:

He's concerned the whole website could be blacklisted. I think that's plausible.

The way I'm reading it is he's not stating his personal view but rather what he thinks the general opinion is.

In fact he believes it's unlikely the government would directly try to have it banned abroad. I also find that plausible.

I've isolated those two quotes from the same post for a reason: you are seeing the mechanism in the first part why the second part is inevitably wrong. No one thinks GOG will be banned from, say, USA, because China gets offended. No, instead, the concern is that gog on the whole gets blacklisted in china because people can buy the game from GOG, even if they're not from China. This is not an official worldwide ban on the game from China, but it effectively is.

I don't see any contradiction here. The government is of course not benevolent, they just don't deal with small fish. And nobody in China would have even known about the game being released had it not been for the fact that GOG decided to tell everyone themselves. There's an earlier post by Mori_Yuki that has a quote from GOG's announcement preserved: What likely happened after the announcement is that GOG faced a predictable backlash on social media as people were trying to one-up one another calling for boycott to demonstrate their patriotic virtues, or something to that effect. Of course the social media are tightly controlled so it'd be possible for censors to stop such messages from spreading but why would they, since (1) people need something to complain about, (2) they were not complaining about the government, (3) it might even be useful (one way to make sure the Party stays in power forever is to convince the people that everyone abroad is out there to get them). But it's not that the government started all this, they just didn't stop it. Maybe the censors helped a bit here and there by deleting a few dissenting voices to make sure everyone really was either on the same page or out of the picture but that's the likely extent of their involvement.

Then, CD Projekt/GOG just panicked and overreacted, taking the decision to delist the game worldwide. If you think about everything they have done so far to maximize Cyberpunk 2077 earnings, it's not really that surprising. They set an impossible deadline, released an incomplete game, told everyone it worked great on consoles, did not provide the console version for reviews, prohibited PC reviewers from showing their own footage, bribed influencers with cameos, etc. I don't want to trash Cyberpunk 2077 because it seems the game isn't really as bad as some portray it to be, and I'm sure it will get better. However, considering the amount of shenanigans surrounding its release, throwing GOG's reputation down the toilet to prevent any possible (however unlikely) boycott of the game in China would be par for the course and is just small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

Of course the above is just speculation on my part but a scenario like this would explain how GOG could have banned the game to "ensure their interests," while the Chinese government would have been "innocent" with regard to this. And I think it's the most likely scenario. Everyone looking for excuses to put the blame elsewhere (there is even a post where someone blames Visa and MasterCard) is just making things easier for the most obvious culprit.