So if we're going to be political from now on, we would expect GOG to ban the US customers as well, since the US is occupying a piece of Syria. Or Turkey for the same. How about China for Tibet/Hong Kong/Uyghurs? How about that GOG? What are the rules here, just so we're clear on who gets banned for what. Is it obligatory to support LGBT rights next?

Maybe CDPR should stay in their lane instead of going into politics in order to not alienate their customers. Just a thought.

I never bought Samsung and Apple products.
It is sad that I still have to use Intel or AMD CPU though.

Ban Turkey until it gives back Constantinople!!!!!

War isn't politics. It's war.

I said nothing about what GOG staff feels about anything.

Limiting what is expressed on media is within the legal rights of those that own it, including forums. That is why the terms of use can limit what is posted here, and why they don't have to follow the same rules they set for users.
We can expect they will do what and when they feel appropriate. If you don't like it, maybe you should get out of their lane. This is there highway, in case you hadn't noticed.

You can repeat that as many times as you want. But that wouldn't make that true.

Then what did you say? What is the reason for GoG not refusing to serve US or China despite their agressive actions against Syria, Turky or Hong Kong?

If censorship is made legal, that doesn't make it good. Just like when slavery was legal that didn't make it good.

You'll be waiting a long time then. You hit the nail on the head by calling this media stunt virtue signaling. Anyone who claims otherwise is either being disingenuous or is just wildly ignorant. People in this very thread will handwave the human rights violations and atrocities of the countries you listed and make some argument that it can only actually count if a country invades another.

Yet where are the sanctions in the Israel-Palestine conflict? Ahh, that one is a little murkier with no clear-cut socially favored side to back. So they duck their heads and avoid it. Well then, there's about eight wars going on in Africa and the Middle East. Why no sanctions over the Yemeni Crisis or the Tigray War? Both of which have had far more casualties than the Ukraine war. But... no. Those aren't fashionable conflicts that have earned the #thoughtsandprayers of virtue signaling bluechecks on Twitter.

But above all the best reason to identify this all as grandstanding and virtue signaling? Russia invaded Ukraine eight years ago and occupied Crimea. GOG was around then. GOG didn't give a single care that it was happening because social media wasn't trying to cancel Russia. The same country invaded the same country twice in less than a decade and GOG only levied sanctions the one time that it was in vogue to clutch your pearls over.

As far as I know, I am allowed to write my opinion on THEIR highway. And I will do so when I choose to.

Steam SILENTLY did the same, already. Somebody opened a neutral thread without politics being discussed, merely asking "if steam also blocked users from those countries from purchasing games anymore", citing that Paypal could still work for Russians at the time and saying that at least 2 russian banks were excluded from sanctions (the ones linked with energy production that Europeans merrily keep buying to this very day) and asking if purchasing on steam store was still possible.

Various nuts appeared to raise arguments that "anyway it is not their top priority to buy games now", or "since they are out of swift they cannot make online purchases anyway" and random irrelevant, plus derailing stuff. No official responded. Thread was closed after couple of hours and deleted, gone!

I bet my money on every major distributor doing the same, without announcements, unlike gog. Only small shops like the zoom-platform still work. Just a heads up!

Because that method totally works — just look at North Korea and Iran who'll overthrow their dictatorship any minute now.

Didn't you people play a Civilization game? Ever heard of cultural victory? That's how USSR was defeated — not with sanctions, but with western influence. And this time you cut it off yourself? I'm sure Putin is quite happy that you do his work for him.

Did some of those countries attack a sovereign country, and annex its lands to its own? Recently or even during GOG's existence?

Sorry, but that was a very weak attempt at whataboutism. We see a lot of those from Putin supporters, like "Well, the allied forces bombed Berlin in WW2, so why can't we bomb Kiev just as well? It's exactly the same thing, isn't it?".

Damn it! You got us! Leevi, we are exposed...

We were _this_ close to replace Putin with our own corrupt Finnish leader as the head of Russia so that he/she would enslav all the slav people, and annex the whole of Russia to Finland.


Joking aside, rest of the world doesn't really care that much about Russia. Just stay within your own borders and stop threatening and attacking non-violent, small defenseless countries like Ukraine, Finland, Sweden and Baltic countries.

I think that is exactly what irritated Putin (and his supporters) so much; "we" were not considering Russia that important, compared to e.g. China who has actually become an economic superpower, being able to renew its country in many ways to a modern country (even if it is not a democratic country). As long as Russia still sells some gas and oil to us, we are fine.

The former Estonian president Ilves has now given snide remarks to (former and current) Finnish leaders about how naive we've been about Russia, and in the past we've been eager to "educate" Estonia that they shouldn't use so harsh and polarizing language about the threat of Russia. Our former foreign minister had even claimed in the past that Ilves, the former president of Estonia, was working for CIA, and our former (female) president, Tarja Halonen, who was a "friend" of Putin, even received a kitten as a gift from him, claimed at some point that Estonia and some other countries are so harsh in their words because they have some kind of "post-traumatic stress" about being part of Soviet Union before.

Well, looks like Ilves and Estonia were right all along, and we really were naive. The snide remarks were well earned. Now where was that application form to NATO again, have to hurry while Russia is busy with Ukraine...

Yes, the problem is becoming how to pay. As SWIFT do not work for most Russian banks, and now Paypal, Visa and Mastercard has also pulled out of Russia, the options are dwindling rappidly.

Yeah, because standing with a nation that is bravely defending herself from an absolutelly provoked and barbarous military invasion is "virtue signalling". No dude, virtue signalling would be condemning the Russian invasion but then doing nothing concrete to fight it. But that isn't true, the West, including Aus/NZ/Canada are sending tens of millions of dollars in advanced military equiptment so Ukraine can better defend herself.

Absolutely hilarous that far-Right activists in the West think having any morals or ethics is "virtue signalling". You are the same type of people who in 1939 would be cheering on Hitler invading Poland, absolutely disgusting.

Would that have worked also against Hitler and Germany?

The difference is that we are running out of time, as Russia has decided to attack its smaller neighbor countries. I am sure any civilized country would be willing to free North Koreans from their evil leader, but both because China is backing North Korea, and North Korea has a thick line of high-power cannons pointed directly at Seoul in case anyone would threaten North Korea and its leaders, there's little we can do at the moment, other than boycotting North Korea.

In Russia's case, even if they aren't really a democracy, I rather feel they have a leader they deserve, as Putin seems to be supported by so many Russians. You must revolt and oust your evil leader yourself. You did it already in the early 90s when Soviet Union collapsed, but after that you just f*cked it up again, not sure why. A cultural thing, maybe? You like to see villains as your leaders, there is no other way?

And yes, Putin also has nuclear weapons, which complicates matters as well. Maybe Finland should get nuclear weapons too and point them to St Petersburg and Moscow, that way Putin and Russia would respect us too as a legit country. The same with Baltic countries.

Nailed it.

And for the record, blindly charging whataboutism weakens your argument. You're avoiding arguments that build necessary context on the charge of wanton hypocrisy and double standards, and you're doing it by using the accusation of whataboutism to deflect and avoid your inability to account for those arguments in a good faith exchange of ideas.