It is a bit besides the point that the game is available elsewhere. If anything, it only makes GOG look even worse.

I see no problem with me linking to a DRM-free game since the topic of that specific game was brought up. You should be happy that I'm bumping this thread, right? :)

To: JAAHAS

Firstly, thanks for addressing the Devotion fiasco. It came off as either the Devil’s advocate at best or gaslighting at its the worst for me.

Quoted Mikesemb’s reply:
“The law is if you want to do business in China you need to do whatever the hell the chinese government wants you to. If you don't then China just revokes your right to do business there.
"Make a stand" really means "abandon the chinese market", just so you know what you're actually talking about that is."

-So what? We just stand there and let the chinese giverment silence who ever they want? To push down and bully who ever they please!?

They invade Hong Kong, and we just SHUT UP and take it to make china money!
I was raised in a FREE world where we fight for our rights! Where we fight for our freedom to speak! China no mater what reasom has no right to push on its censorship.

Call me a troll if you want, but i am a troll who will not just kneel down and let the CCP tell me what to say or do!
Better off a free troll and a oppressed man.”
------
We’ve gotten radio silence, it’s obvious GOG’s ignoring Devotion given how long this has dragged on. Angryjoe made a video on youtube about this (308k views)
watch?v=7wgLOQWCB6U

Motivation for this behaviour leans towards the escalation of commitment.
The ability for human nature to double down on bad decisions due to commitment bias. User kdgog stated to have emailed GOG on this matter, we’ve gotten silence so far.
Ideas for Devotion (Resolution for this fiasco)

1: Release Devotion globally except Mainland China (respond to many gamers that no Chinese laws will be broken WITHIN China) - Region locked game
I’m a global citizen witnessing GOG becoming a vector for Chinese Global censorship, subjecting everyone else not living under People’s Republic of China with their censorship.

2: GOG gives a clear and honest reply to their consumers that they can’t release Devotion for X reason/s. This will restore confidence and some faith back to GOG from its long-time support base.

3: Not have Devotion on GOG storefront but have it as an affiliate link towards Red Candle Game’s store. Maybe as part of an official post/thread or a direct link when searched from the storefront.

4: Release a patched release of Devotion (the one where they removed the ‘joke’ and subsequently apologised for it) with Warning/Disclaimer of what happened and how Red Candle patched the offending material.

5: Release Detention, This isn’t Devotion but could have it in the form of a link in the game’s description.

These are just what I came up with, there’s possibly more options/compromise we can have for Devotion to be here in some ‘official’ format. I see this partly as a struggle between economic pragmatism and social/political idealism. Obviously from the beginning, GOG has leaned on the ideals of DRM-Free. This is a big reason why a lot of users felt betrayed/sidelined/ignored by the direction GOG is heading towards.

I strongly encourage people who don’t know the full story to check the Devotion wishlist (people have stated their reasons), Forum search ‘Devotion’ and GOG’s twitter reply: ‘Many Gamers’ don’t want it.
A lot of users have already left/inactive, deleted their accounts and moved on. People boycotting on this specific thread are but a fraction of those actually boycotting, not everyone who disagreed with GOG's handling of Devotion participate in forums and not everyone felt the need to voice their concerns, they simply left. I'm passionate about what GOG used to stand for, DRM-Free uncensored content. Even with the abused rep system, I owe it to many others and myself to shine a light for Devotion's circumstance, if not for its release.

My sincere thanks for your time reading this. There's nothing wrong to want money for what you do to survive, but sacrificing morales for want of all the money you can possibly get.

PS:
Reason for no link: "You cannot post any links at this moment."
l looked around and found this from GOG team JudasIscariot:
"This is related to the low amount of rep as it prevents spambots (not calling you one, btw :) ) from posting their garbage on the forum with only 1 rep. Once you get to around 20 rep you'll be able to post links."
Either this holds true for me (I've used multiple browsers and computers) or else I'm noob at posting links.

Did I say there was a problem with you linking to a DRM-free game? No. I merely stated that it is a bit besides the point that the game is available elsewhere (something you are obviously aware of, and seemingly ignoring in your response).

It’s appears like you are trying to say that it doesn’t matter if the game is refused by GOG because it is available for purchase elsewhere. But again, if anything, it only makes GOG look even worse. And anyone who wants to purchase the game elsewhere could easily have googled it themselves.

All of your ideas are about what GOG should do, as if you totally missed my point about how GOG wouldn't be able to do any of those things without the rest of the CDP Group's approval and by now it should be quite clear that from the CDP Group's point of view the risk of CCP banning all of CDPR's games in China is far more scarier than a bunch of angry ex-GOG customers targeting their boycott only against GOG, as the ban could last decades and potentially harm greatly CDPR's sales on all platforms whereas this boycott may not even register as a blip in the entire CDP Group's quarterly reports.

I am not saying that things are good, but that in order even have any hope of getting any results with the Devotion incident you need to take a step back and see the forest (CDP Group) behind the tree (GOG) you have been banging your head against.

Not that you then burning the entire forest down is likely going to end up with any positive long term results either, as that is far more likely to create an atmosphere where the other platforms just start paying far more better attention about what kind of games they are about the agree to release and make the developers sign NDAs that ensure that should any of their games later be found to contain any CCP offending material, the developers will "voluntarily" pull such games from the platform, as that way the platforms get to keep selling games to China while also avoid any major backlashes from their other customers and eventually no sane developer who doesn't want to self-publish and host their games is going risk putting any CCP related criticism or jokes in their games.

But wasn't it bad to bring real world politics into gaming anyway, at least so many here seemed think that when GOG announced that they will stop selling games to Russia, so please continue and don't mind me pointing out how that argument always seems to only apply to whatever politics the one bringing up that argument doesn't agree with...

I think GOG should apply steam's approach to this fiasco. If a government forces you to censor, censor in that market only (or pull off the market, if you want to make a stand). But if GOG is going to censor the content I can or can't get on their platform due to whatever the chinese say, GOG won't get more money from me.

I'm also opposed to the Russia ban situation, but that's a completely different matter.

Thanks for your post 5P34R, your response is a great summary of why the Devotion incident is totally unacceptable and why anyone who values freedom of speech should be boycotting GOG.com.

I 100% agree. If the Chinese government don't like Devotion, then at most the response to that should be to block the game from release in China. China has no business whatsoever trying to impose their censorship on citizens in other countries, or telling us what media we can or cannot consume.

This is another important aspect of the scandal. Not only did GOG bend over to China and accept their blackmail, they also lied about it and placed the blame on 'gamers'. They didn't have the decency to be honest and tell the truth, and they still don't.

From my point-of-view, it is your post that is missing the point. Whether it was GOG or CDPR that made the decision to cancel the Devotion release is irrelevant. They are both part of the same company, so it is a false distinction. Especially as a business that was founded based on championing ethical principles, I expect and will insist that GOG acts in an ethical manner, if they want my continued business. If CDPR is not willing to support GOG's ethical stance, then they should not be owning and running such a store in the first place.

You seem to be arguing that it is ok for a large company to act in an unethical manner, if it is in their business interest. I will never agree with that. I expect western companies to put ethics before profits and to uphold the core values of the countries they are based in, such as freedom of speech and human rights. Ethics come before profits, always.

Imposing Chinese censorship on citizens of western countries as a requirement for GOG/CDPR accessing the Chinese market is unethical and unacceptable. Period. Arguments about potential impacts on corporate profits and which business entity likely made the decision are irrelevant to that.

i think of it like this, if your an american and don't like vegimite, you have no right to stop the sale of vegimite in australia. It just makes no sence to even try to enforce, something that isn't in your area.

https://www.gog.com/game/daggerfall_unity_gog_cut

Initiatives like this, supporting communities of modders and enthusiasts like they did with so many other games before, like the huge WIng Commander community that made the game what it is today. This is what makes GOG so great.Is it perfect? of course not. But they are genuinely trying to make it better for us.

This is just one of the reasons I can't think of boycotting anything where GOG is concerned. On the opposite,all I can do is praise and support them as much as I can. As I've been doing for a couple of years already. I only buy games on GOG atm. I left almost 1000 games on Steam and didn't grow my library there for a couple of years already in favor of GOG.

Why? well for starters I am old school, in my early 40s and love Good Old RPG games like Baldurs gate, etc. and love to keep DRM Free copies of my games on Hard drive. This is the only place I can get both. Good old games and backups. You may say, yes I could get them for free... maybe but also with loads of malware attached, and in an unsupported faction. Just the hassle of getting these old games to work on modern OS's would be a nightmare. I could also make backups of DRM free games on Steam. That is true and I also did custom installers for them. The only downside is, they wont survive the test of time, and ultimately they will cease to work, eventually. Or be removed from the digital Stores... If I have backups I keep the games with me forever.

Thanks GOG for being what you are today, and truthfully trying to make it better for us in the long run.

:)

Except many of the modders didn't grant permission as they were asked at literally the last second if they were asked at all. Way to go taking modders' content without permission, GOG.

Also, are the modders being paid for that content? Because, if not, in what way is GOG 'supporting' those modders?

Is there a way to know GOG's percentage cut on sales so I can calculate fairly accurately how much I am not contributing to their bottom line (for everything they have on sale that I would of bought had I not been boycotting).

I feel it must be starting to get up there in financial numbers because there have been quite a few titles that have been.. 'sigh if only I can stand this company anymore'.

Also I want to start trying to make my own running total; might even be an idea for the thread.
Mainly because this is the language bean counters talk in. :P

Ceterum censeo GOGinem esse delendam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est

yeah but gog can't be anything until they start pushing same platform same product. WOW you can get your old dos games DRM free?!?; so freakin what you already could.
Fact is they are not anti DRM (their core centralising feature) without putting in writing that directive it's a dead end platform with nowhere to go.
GOG needs to wake up to their niche and the only way their consumer base can wake them up & slap a little sensibility into them is to boycott.

Your comment interests me but sorry I'm confused.

Are you talking about GOG not getting big-name mainstream games here? If publishers of said games won't allow it (like GOG requiring DRM-free, at least for the majority of the content, especially after the Hitman situation) or just don't care (for reasons like GOG being very small/niche store and doesn't make much money), that's out of GOG's hands. GOG has always been pretty niche and doesn't have much leverage. Shouldn't the concern be about the products coming here actually being DRM-free?

Or are you talking more about GOG not being a crusader for/passionate about DRM-free?