I always thought there is no censorship here and why their devs can't publish the game here? Their game is really wished to but by many gamers

If we knew, most of us wouldn't have the urge to go slap some heads over in Warsaw, Poland. (As we'd know exactly which heads, instead of having to apply the glove shotgun.)

Aside from their typical MO of baffling job listings when they've got bigger fish to fry. (Check the many missing positions for software engineering.)

I'm not sure why you thought that. That has never been true of GOG, and GOG has banned tons games in the past, for many years long before Devotion came along. Agony Unrated is a good example.


As for why did they ban it: because they have no courage and they didn't want to offend the CCP.

Less to do with actually offending the CCP than losing that Chinese money. Of course, Chinese money is completely controlled by the CCP.

Let's be clear - none of those things are banned here. There's a big difference between someone electing not to sell something and it being banned. Whether or not you agree with their reasons for deciding not to sell it, it's not banned.

They leaned over to be rogered by China for money. They then blamed it on the "gamers". GOG is full of it and easily the most idiotic thing they've done since FCKDRM.

Indeed. Probably a relatively sound business decision. I imagine the market they would stand to lose by getting themselves banned in China is a bit larger than the number of people actually boycotting them for this decision.
Still, they could probably have had fewer boycotts if they'd handled it better.

I think they probably naively thought that enough time had passed and the controversy was forgotten.

Then when they announced it on twitter and, not the smartest idea, on Chinese social media, they probably got bombarded by e-mail from China (either from nationalist or simply normal gamers worried it might result on Cyberpunk / Gog being banned) they understood their mistake and chicken out.

It's taken them quite some time to see that value. I can say from personal experience that until 2017ish (whenever they opened their Chinese storefront) their website was pretty much unusable from inside China

Besides, they can still get banned. I'm sure you heard about the Chinese Steam store that features only 50 or so games? And gog doesn't exactly have a rich selection of Chinese RPGs, if they were to open their own Chinese storefront, they' could sell maybe half a dozen games at best.

Because "gamers".


aka chinese bots who licks the pooh balls.

I think you misunderstood, by banned I mean GOG could simply not sell it on the whole. I'm aware of the Steam Chinese store, but a difference a lot of people tend to overlook between Devotion on Steam and on GOG was how it was handled at the gulf of time between the two releases. GOG sold previously banned games in Germany, so it's not like they don't have a history of selling titles not available in other areas, which is true of Steam and other storefront.

GOG do operate within the Chinese market already as you mentioned, including social media presence, it's just clear the Devotion affair was protecting their interests, they were just wildly dishonest about it, or maybe don't even understand the reaction to their actions.

GOG should put that on their frontpage^^

darthspudius:
"Easily the most idiotic thing they've done since FCKDRM!"
10/10

lol I'd be honoured if they did.