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General discussionDevotion is coming to GOG on Dec. 18th!(1322 posts)(1322 posts)
(1322 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 19, 2020
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Ancient-Red-Dragon: Besides, in any case, so what if GOG did receive messages from "many gamers" telling them not to release the game? Since when do customers get to dictate to GOG what they shall or shall not release? Answer: never...until now (and even now, that's only because GOG made up a fake story to pretend they suddenly started banning games due to customer feedback, as a cover for the real truth that they bent the knee and censored the game solely in order not potentially to offend the Chinese government).
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Gersen: I would say since those customers represent the biggest and fastest growing PC game market in the world, and that Gog is available there, without VPN, unofficially. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those games, if they exists, were actually not bot or even nationalist, but simply Chinese game afraid that Gog could be blocked if they release this game.

Don't get me wrong I still think the way they handled the whole Devotion debacle to be incredibly bad, but from a cynical business point of view I can understand why they don't want to draw the CCP attention on themselves.
I could see that. If GOG doesn't have the foresight to see how promising the game might piss off the CCP, they might also not have the level of foresight to understand how retracting it might piss off the rest of their userbase.
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Ancient-Red-Dragon: Oh, they lied alright!

They probably received very few, if any messages.

And if they did receive message, then they were from bot accounts controlled by agents of the Chinese government, and definitely not from "gamers," as GOG flagrantly lies about.

And in any case, why is GOG hiding the supposed messages?

GOG should publicly disclose all the alleged messages that they got so that we, the real customers, can audit & vet & scrutinize them. GOG can simply redact the 'personal' information that may be in them (even though they are from bots/fictional characters, not people, so therefore, there can be no actual personal information in them anyway), and put the rest of the content up on the internet unedited.

Besides, in any case, so what if GOG did receive messages from "many gamers" telling them not to release the game? Since when do customers get to dictate to GOG what they shall or shall not release? Answer: never...until now (and even now, that's only because GOG made up a fake story to pretend they suddenly started banning games due to customer feedback, as a cover story for the real truth --- which is that they bent the knee at the last minute, and censored the game solely out of fear that they do not potentially offend the Chinese government).
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W3irdN3rd: If the messages from "many gamers" do exist, they're not on social media. (not Western social media anyway..) I doubt "many gamers" would contact CDPR privately.

My best guess is that if these messages exist, they would exist as reviews for CDPR games, as review bombing is the only way they know to communicate. So I tried to look at https://steamcommunity.com/app/1091500/negativereviews/?browsefilter=mostrecent&snr=1_5_100010_&p=1&filterLanguage=schinese (and equivalent pages for Witcher 3 and GWENT) but on this page I can't select a date range. And with infinite scroll it will take forever (and probably crash my computer?) to get to the December 16 reviews, the date they supposedly received these messages. Though even if I did, I expect any threats addressed to CDPR or Red Candle Games to have been deleted by now.

If someone else has a way of collecting all reviews (including positive as threats may have been disguised as positive reviews) from December 16 for CDPR games, please share.
I noticed alot more english under "traditional chinese." Still, you might need a specialized crawler for that. It loads more comments as you scroll, so i don't know how to grab that with curl without going through all the HTML. Surely if someone made a utility, we could get the whole list raw without eating soo mcuh ram and such, and we could simply grep the results.
Post edited December 19, 2020 by kohlrak
Posted December 19, 2020
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kohlrak: Interestingly enogh, wouldn't that mean that catering to the chinese market for 2077 ends up being a bad decision if so many chinese end up getting refunds regardless?
It definitely doesn't look like a decision well-executed. Just opening a separate forum and hiring a single moderator part-time doesn't seem like an acceptable customer service standard to those pesky Chinese.

I think GOG's most important problem is that since they don't have local presence in China, the downloads are slow. This maybe doesn't matter for small games but for something like Cyberpunk 2077 it certainly does. I think most Chinese would rather buy the game on Steam for this reason. If they decided to do so here it's probably because they went out of their way to support GOG, and for that they get screwed, which is actually kind of sad.
Post edited December 19, 2020 by Turbo-Beaver
Posted December 19, 2020
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kohlrak: Interestingly enogh, wouldn't that mean that catering to the chinese market for 2077 ends up being a bad decision if so many chinese end up getting refunds regardless?
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Turbo-Beaver: It definitely doesn't look like a decision well-executed. Just opening a separate forum and hiring a single moderator part-time doesn't seem like an acceptable customer service standard to those pesky Chinese.

I think GOG's most important problem is that since they don't have local presence in China, the downloads are slow. This maybe doesn't matter for small games but for something like Cyberpunk 2077 it certainly does. I think most Chinese would rather buy the game on Steam for this reason. If they decided to do so here it's probably because they went out of their way to support GOG, and for that they get screwed, which is actually kind of sad.
I think you misunderstand the power of TCP. Bandwidth is unrelated to ping, and i doubt that extra 500 milliseconds matters compared to the hours necessary to download. The complaints i'm reading seem to be alluding to Wirth's Law, which you kinda are, too, but from a different angle. The issue is, the computers in china are probably comparable to the box i use.

EDIT: Finally got the URL in a way gog likes.
Post edited December 19, 2020 by kohlrak
Posted December 19, 2020
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kohlrak: Interestingly enogh, wouldn't that mean that catering to the chinese market for 2077 ends up being a bad decision if so many chinese end up getting refunds regardless?
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Turbo-Beaver: It definitely doesn't look like a decision well-executed. Just opening a separate forum and hiring a single moderator part-time doesn't seem like an acceptable customer service standard to those pesky Chinese.

I think GOG's most important problem is that since they don't have local presence in China, the downloads are slow. This maybe doesn't matter for small games but for something like Cyberpunk 2077 it certainly does. I think most Chinese would rather buy the game on Steam for this reason. If they decided to do so here it's probably because they went out of their way to support GOG, and for that they get screwed, which is actually kind of sad.
If this hasnt been posted yet but from my POV the obvious reason for GOGs behavior is CDPs (presumed - I dont actually know) business plan for China:
1. Spread Cyberpunk single player to make players like it. Whether this is by pirating, Steam, GOG or whatever doesnt matter too much.
2. Release DRMed microtransactioned MP version of Cyberpunk.
3. Make lots of money from Chinese players. Far as I know Chinese have a different gaming culture and dont mind being milked in this way.

Edit: So Chinese sheep boycotting GOG/Cyberpunk because their boss said so is bad for making this happen.
Post edited December 19, 2020 by Zrevnur
Posted December 19, 2020
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Turbo-Beaver: It definitely doesn't look like a decision well-executed. Just opening a separate forum and hiring a single moderator part-time doesn't seem like an acceptable customer service standard to those pesky Chinese.

I think GOG's most important problem is that since they don't have local presence in China, the downloads are slow. This maybe doesn't matter for small games but for something like Cyberpunk 2077 it certainly does. I think most Chinese would rather buy the game on Steam for this reason. If they decided to do so here it's probably because they went out of their way to support GOG, and for that they get screwed, which is actually kind of sad.
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Zrevnur: If this hasnt been posted yet but from my POV the obvious reason for GOGs behavior is CDPs (presumed - I dont actually know) business plan for China:
1. Spread Cyberpunk single player to make players like it. Whether this is by pirating, Steam, GOG or whatever doesnt matter too much.
2. Release DRMed microtransactioned MP version of Cyberpunk.
3. Make lots of money from Chinese players. Far as I know Chinese have a different gaming culture and dont mind being milked in this way.

Edit: So Chinese sheep boycotting GOG/Cyberpunk because their boss said so is bad for making this happen.
And, it's a flop, anyway. As always, gog manages to alienate both sides of an issue.
Posted December 19, 2020
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Turbo-Beaver: I think GOG's most important problem is that since they don't have local presence in China, the downloads are slow.
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kohlrak: I think you misunderstand the power of TCP. Bandwidth is unrelated to ping, and i doubt that extra 500 milliseconds matters compared to the hours necessary to download.
I was talking about bandwidth. China's connections to the rest of the world are heavily throttled. I don't know why they want to refund it but if they bought it on GOG and not Steam it's most certainly not for the download speeds.
Posted December 19, 2020
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kohlrak: I think you misunderstand the power of TCP. Bandwidth is unrelated to ping, and i doubt that extra 500 milliseconds matters compared to the hours necessary to download.
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Turbo-Beaver: I was talking about bandwidth. China's connections to the rest of the world are heavily throttled. I don't know why they want to refund it but if they bought it on GOG and not Steam it's most certainly not for the download speeds.
Then why did you say it was the most important problem?
Posted December 19, 2020
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Turbo-Beaver: I was talking about bandwidth. China's connections to the rest of the world are heavily throttled. I don't know why they want to refund it but if they bought it on GOG and not Steam it's most certainly not for the download speeds.
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kohlrak: Then why did you say it was the most important problem?
I said it was, in my opinion, GOG's most important problem in "catering to the [C]hinese market for [Cyberpunk] 2077," referring to a part of your post where you asked if it was worth it for them to do so.

So, going back to your original question: is it worth it for them to cater to the Chinese market? In general, I think it is. But they would have had to up their game quite a bit, in particular improving download speeds, as well as, from what I'm seeing now, also customer support. Trying to do it on the cheap was never going to cut it and is now unraveling as a slow-motion trainwreck with frustrated customers getting no responses. And these are, I believe, the most loyal of them who decided to buy the game on GOG to support the developer. So it wasn't really a great idea to do it the way GOG did it.

Ultimately it's about the game though. CDPR/GOG clearly didn't expect the situation to develop this way. If the game were well-received, most of the above likely wouldn't matter much.
Post edited December 19, 2020 by Turbo-Beaver
Posted December 19, 2020
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I generally came here to say that since GOG does not behave like a company with a conscience (that is, like a company who does not bend before demands from oppressive governments that want to control free speech not only within their borders, but in the outside world, too) I do not feel obliged to behave like a consumer with a conscience. I don't think I'm going to buy any more GOG games.

I'm not sure if someone at GOG will notice my comment. It would be nice to know if there is a place or address where I can leave my comment on GOG's decision in a way that can be, among others, noticed by the company.
Posted December 19, 2020
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so.. are we gonna get a better statement on this than "many messages from gamers"? or is GOG gonna keep mum? I know I'm just a drop in the bucket (more like ocean) but I've not purchased anything this sale so far and I'm not planning on buying anything until at least an official statement.
Posted December 19, 2020
Why companies think it's okay to cooperate and bow down to a government that would command it's army to fire automatic weaponry into crowds of unarmed people is beyond my comprehension.

Maybe GOG can let us know why they feel like they should cater to these animals.
Post edited December 19, 2020 by RockyFour1
Posted December 19, 2020
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Grahor: I'm not sure if someone at GOG will notice my comment. It would be nice to know if there is a place or address where I can leave my comment on GOG's decision in a way that can be, among others, noticed by the company.
You can upvote the game on the wishlist if you haven't already: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/devotion and also leave the comment there. Some people have also contacted support about it (I haven't).

They're definitely noticing the response but they seem to think they can ignore it and wait it over, which "many gamers" (myself included) find is just adding insult to injury. What could change the most at this point is probably more media coverage.
Posted December 19, 2020
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Grahor: I'm not sure if someone at GOG will notice my comment. It would be nice to know if there is a place or address where I can leave my comment on GOG's decision in a way that can be, among others, noticed by the company.
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Turbo-Beaver: You can upvote the game on the wishlist if you haven't already: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/devotion and also leave the comment there. Some people have also contacted support about it (I haven't).

They're definitely noticing the response but they seem to think they can ignore it and wait it over, which "many gamers" (myself included) find is just adding insult to injury. What could change the most at this point is probably more media coverage.
Sent support an email but got what seems to be an automated response that the support servers are full and my email will not be answered. I'll try another on Monday.
Posted December 19, 2020
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Turbo-Beaver: They're definitely noticing the response but they seem to think they can ignore it and wait it over, which "many gamers" (myself included) find is just adding insult to injury. What could change the most at this point is probably more media coverage.
That's a typical GOG response. Most issues they will ignore us the people that actually use GOG and have given/give them money, but they seem actually listen/act to people that have not and most likely will never use them at all.
Post edited December 19, 2020 by RoboPond
Posted December 19, 2020
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shattenyagger: so.. are we gonna get a better statement on this than "many messages from gamers"? or is GOG gonna keep mum? I know I'm just a drop in the bucket (more like ocean) but I've not purchased anything this sale so far and I'm not planning on buying anything until at least an official statement.
Yeah, same here. If (and that's an if) these messages came in the form of review bombing (which seems the most likely option if those messages exist at all), I want to know. And if it was miscommunication or whatever, I want to know.

My letter to GOG/CDPR.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionDevotion is coming to GOG on Dec. 18th!(1322 posts)(1322 posts)
(1322 posts)