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Amok and Rizzo, might as well try to remove all product of country origin labels on all physical products using the same arguments then.

If people don't want to buy products from a different country or, more importantly, they want to specifically buy from certain countries, let them. Same thing with political curated/boycott lists. It's a free market.

I also keep mentioning the remittance of taxes to that respective developer's government whether it's in the form of sales taxes or that devpub's business, or those staffs' income taxes. More relevant information when buying is simply more pro-consumer and is never a bad thing.

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Without doing specific searches, you can get a sample or make a calendar reminder when these sales will come up again:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/8_games_you_didnt_know_were_made_in_czech_republic_and_slovakia_fb005
https://www.gog.com/en/news/lets_celebrate_vive_la_france
https://www.gog.com/en/news/special_sale_bgames_made_in_poland_with_deals_up_to_90_offb
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/its_time_for_ukraine_days_2c760/page1

Wish there was more, but alas.
Post edited March 12, 2025 by UnashamedWeeb

Creating an in-group automatically creates an out-group. Sociology 101, as you are interested in geopolitcs, you should know this.
Fascinating, I'm talking about a tag/grouping which helps make a choice. It's no different to having a tag on something to denote whether something is Adventure, Action, Atmospheric, Classic, Dark, Open World, Mature, Stealth, Fighting, Beat 'em up, Superhero or is made by WB Games Montreal, Splash Damage / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment etc.

Those tags are designed to inform choices, nothing more, It's metadata. If something is tagged as Stealth, it doesn't set up a sociological "out group" of people who don't like Stealth games. It just acts as a helpful bit of information.

What about those of us who don’t want to focus on 'Made in Europe' but instead care about games made in Africa?
Or games made in Finland? Or games made by women? Or games developed on Linux machines before being ported to Windows? Or games with a low carbon footprint? Or games made by Black developers? Or… [insert countless other classifications]? Don't they also desrve their own 'stamp'?

Why should there only be a 'stamp' for the politics you prefer? Where do you draw the line? If you start classifying games based on politics, you’re opening up a can of worms.
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Ozimandeus: Not at all, but as GoG is a European firm, I would hope to see some solidarity with European developers/publishers.

As for having more country of origin stamps, yeah I think think that would be a good thing. It's not about my politics, its about informing consumer choices. As a European, knowing where my money is going is important to me as that fits in with the overall European value system.
GOG is based in EU, but most of their sales comes from USA....

And that does indeed mean you only want tags based on your politcs. Cheers.

I am waiting for the tag "Made by vegans"
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amok: INdeed, but that information actually realtes directly to the product they are selling. Where it is made does not.
Again - people can use different criteria to make their choices than you or I do. Why should we impose our opinion on the relevance of those criteria on other people? It's just information, no skin of our back. I'm not saying you should "support" the notion and join in asking GOG to implement it, but why argue against a simple feature someone could find useful that doesn't have any negative impact on you? Is the idea of some random person somewhere in the world making a choice based on criteria different than yours really so unbearable?

Amok and Rizzo, might as well try to remove all product of country origin labels on all physical products using the same arguments then.
Spot on..

in other news:

Total solidarity with Canada from me!!
Is the idea of some random person somewhere in the world making a choice based on criteria different than yours really so unbearable?
Thanks for this! my point exactly and better put that I was able to do!
Post edited March 12, 2025 by Ozimandeus
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Ozimandeus: Total solidarity with Canada from me!!
Great way of undermining your own "it's not about politics" argument. >slowclap<

I am waiting for the tag "Made by vegans"
Given I have worked in this industry for more than 30 years, I would say the chances are EVERY game is made by vegans. :-D
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Ozimandeus: Total solidarity with Canada from me!!
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Breja: Great way of undermining your own "it's not about politics" argument. >slowclap<
Exactly! This is just a thinly veiled political rambling disguised as a question. Then suddenly, the thin veil comes off. GOG will close the thread shortly, I'm sure.
Post edited March 12, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
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Ozimandeus: Total solidarity with Canada from me!!
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Breja: Great way of undermining your own "it's not about politics" argument. >slowclap<
It isn't. I am, I can separate the two.
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Ozimandeus: Small request, given the current state of geo-politics. I'm making the decision to prioritise products made in Europe (EU + ETFA + UK). It would be really useful if we could have a group on the store that has a "Made in Europe" filter. This will allow customers like me to make an informed decision.
Apart for Indy games how is it supposed to work ?

For example for CDPR; event thought they are based in Poland they have a studio in the US and they have contractors in other non-EU countries; so are the games they made really European or not ?

What about Ubisoft ? They are originally a French company owner by a French family, but they have studios / Offices in the US, in Canada, in Brazil, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, and UAE. So are they a "European" developer or not ?

What about Epic who is partially owner by Tencent ? Are they an American company even thought 48% of it is owned by China ?

And let's go further, if your objective is not to give money to country X or Y, what about the engine ? if you don't want to support the US for example then every single games using Unreal engine is also giving money to the US and potentially also to China.

Even for physical goods the "Made in..." is very often a fraud and doesn't really mean anything but for games that are usually created by multi-countries studio and contractors it is even worse, I fail to see how it would works.
Game development is quite literally a global business. Where would you even draw the line for such a label?

Just two examples:

Ubisoft is a French company but development of their games is split across studios all over the world. Even one single game will still have contributions from multpile continents including Europe. Would they get the label?

Remedy is a Finnish developer but their game Alan Wake 2 was fully funded and published by Epic, a US company. Would they get the label?

Would the labels even fulfill their intended purpose, when 99% of game development is not clear cut in regards to who is involved?
Post edited March 12, 2025 by Randalator

Even for physical goods the "Made in..." is very often a fraud and doesn't really mean anything but for games that are usually created by multi-countries studio and contractors it is even worse, I fail to see how it would works.
A really good point. Right now I look at who the developer is, see who owns that developer, if they are a plc I'll check the shareholders. If the publisher is different to the developer I'll do the same for them. If they are in the EU or EFTA or UK. Then I will add the game I am researching to my Wishlist. If they are not, I do not.

Whilst I accept that some developers may use non European skillsets to do their work, I have at least done enough due diligence to suggest that the company follows European values (GDPR for example), and pays taxes within a European country.

Similarly I only use Proton (Rather than Google or Microsoft) for Mail/VPN etc because I know who they are, where they are based and who owns them.

Game development is quite literally a global business.
Yes, except if I buy a game from lets say Team 17 (Everplay), or Warhorse studios or CD Project Red. I know they are headquartered in a European country, and as such they pay taxes for Europeans. I now never knowingly purchase goods or services from any country that is outside of Europe, unless I have NO choice - which these days is increasingly rare.

Where would you even draw the line for such a label?

Just two examples:

Ubisoft is a French company but development of their games is split across studios all over the world. Even one single game will still have contributions from multiple continents including Europe. Would they get the label?
Difficult one, I don't tend to buy Ubisoft products for different reasons (digital preservation and DRM concerns), but agreed tricky one to isolate. On balance I'd say likely not.

Remedy is a Finnish developer but their game Alan Wake 2 was fully funded by Epic, a US company. Would they get the label?
Remedy is partially owned by TenCent, as such I wouldn't buy stuff from them. Not because of a political reason against China, but TenCent's blanket owning of everything is a cause for concern. Not as bad as Blackrock, but its getting there.

Would the labels even fulfil their intended purpose, when 99% of game development is not clear cut in regards to who is involved?
In my experience, whilst it is not always clear-cut. It usually is. Most videogame development is not done by the big names, but by smaller companies.
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Ozimandeus: Small request, given the current state of geo-politics. I'm making the decision to prioritise products made in Europe (EU + ETFA + UK). It would be really useful if we could have a group on the store that has a "Made in Europe" filter. This will allow customers like me to make an informed decision.

Thanks :-)
Let's be totally honest. What you actually want is to know which games are made in the United States so that you know which ones to boycott.

I'm more than happy to start you off by telling you that Steam is a US-based company, so you might want to stop buying games over there. I'm saying this because I know a lot of you have Steam accounts in addition to GOG accounts. Well no more Steam for you folks.

Also Epic, itch.io, Humble Bundle and everyone's favorite Zoom Platform are all based in the US. You're going to want to stop supporting these storefronts also.

However IndieGala is based out of Italy, but they mostly just sell Steam keys so US.
Fanatical is in the United Kingdom, but again watch out for Steam keys because US.

Here's some fun facts for you. UbiSoft may be based out of France, but they have offices here in the United States. The only way to ensure that you purchase games that are 100% free of Americans is to avoid all of the big studios because all of the big studios also operate and develop in the United States. This also applies to things like your PlayStation because Sony operates here in California and Nintendo because they operate in Washington.

Maybe someone can start a spreadsheet and call it the "US Content Detector" so that you'll know if a game is safe to purchase due to being US free.... but what you're looking at is small independent studios like the GentleBros (makers of Cat Quest) that is based out of Singapore.


edit -- Forgot to mention that if a game comes out of Japan, localization to English is typically done in the United States if it is any good.
Post edited March 12, 2025 by Catventurer
Not a bad idea, movies have been doing something similar for ages. But consider that by the time gog would be able to implement this, either the world will have ended, or it'll have returned to the type of insanity we were all already used to.