That's kind of my point, you can easily have a country of origin when you purchase your leeks from your local organic market and by doing so you will know that it was most likely cultivated in said country. But for any other good, especially manufactured ones, it is more often than not completely bogus, the requirement for something to be tagged "Made in..." changes from country to country and more often than not only a minimum transformation in the final country is all what is needed for it to be tagged as being "Made in" said country even if 99.9% of it comes from China.

For video games I have given the example of Blade Runner Remaster and HOMM3 which, if we believe Gog, are "French" games (so for old games is the country of origin the original devs or the current rights owners ?), and talking about Ubisoft, them being a huge multinational company I would be very surprised if they pay the majority of their taxes in France and don't do some magic fiscal optimization.


In the end the question is do you want a country of origin that actually means something or do you just want a bogus label to make you feel good about yourself ?

Because most of the existing country of origins labels belong to the second category and if one is made for video games it will definitely be he same.


(Also if you want to "eradicate" goods and services from the US I hope you don't use Visa / Mastercard and Paypal as they are all US companies.)

Actually mean something naturally!, but of course there has to be a reasonable limit on what factors you include in a definition. I would say a game made by a company based within a country would be enough. I'm not expecting GoG to heavily invest in vetting, a simple look at where a companies HQ is (i.e. where it pays business taxes) should be enough. If a company is so contrived that it is impossible to nail it down, I would suggest you likely are unsafe as a consumer buying from them (i.e. higher possibility of a company being a money laundering outfit instead of a real company).

Sadly, payment systems in the West (Amok don't try and define that please) are dominated by the $ so it is almost unavoidable. Even if I get money from an ATM machine I am aware that the bank I am using will pay something to a US based firm. However I am looking at alternatives. Right now I'm looking at Klarna which is based in Sweden. The only other viable alternative might be a Chinese based system, but as of this moment in time that is not an option I would entertain.

I actually am of the opinion that Europe (UK+EU+EFTA) might finally wake up and smell the coffee, we have allowed this to go too far. We have a bigger population than the US and Russia combined. We have a far longer and richer history and have become friends and allies after 1000s of years of War. But for some reason we have allowed ourselves to become vassal states of the USA. Crazy really - the UK's leaving of the EU a symptom of being so overrun by US policies and a bunch of useful idiots in our press and governing elite misdirecting the less engaged of our population.

The € could be a better global currency than the $. But so far there has been too little effort toward that end. I suspect its more business led laziness than any other factor. I look forward to the day I can bank and pay for things without requiring a US based firm to be involved.

But I digress. In short, I think it reasonable (right now) to use https://www.igdb.com/ and https://ogdb.eu/index.php as a basis. From those sources you can find the detail you need to make that call.

That is pure whitewashing of colonialism, ignoring the entire history of these regions before we, the brave white Europeans, colonized them. It also ignores the fact that many white Russians today are descendants of Swedish Vikings.

In fact, the name Russia comes from 'Rus', which refers to a group of Swedish traders who established themselves near Kiev around the 7th century.

Er.. thanks for the clarification (I was aware of that, thanks) . I'd go into the movement of people from out of Africa and the movement of people across the alps, as well as the Gaul/Germanic/Celt tribal history at length. But it has sod all to do with metadata on videogames and non US payment systems so, I think i'll pass.

You might want to go here: https://www.reddit.com/r/history/

What you want then is a made in the European Union tag. In terms of continents, Russia is part of the European continent. Also Hungary is a dictatorship and very much pro-Russia. A made in the European Union tag is not going to guarantee that everything is dictatorship free.

I'm not being obstinate here. What I think you actually need is just a made in the USA tag so that you can avoid all games from the one and only country you hate. Until then, maybe someone can make a thread.

Hungary may find itself forced out of the EU fairly soon (the mood music is changing in Brussels).

A made in USA tag would be helpful, but I think a tag for each country would serve the goal better. That way I can also ensure Canada, Mexico and Panama are also supported by my money.

I have no hatred of the USA. We have been friends my entire life - and in time, I think we will again. But I don't agree with your consistent choice of government, and your system's slide towards fascism has given me significant cause for concern (That's British for really pi**ed me off). As someone of German and English descent, my family has seen this pattern before, we know where it leads and its time for us to make a stand, even in some small way as making sure I only buy videogames made by a European developer (for now).

Hence the need for this thread.

What this means is that no matter how you try to slice it, Russia is and always will be part of Europe - whether in terms of geography, politics, ethnicity, or history.

Speaking of which, you mentioned Germany. Germany just had an election that shifted it closer to the political landscape of the U.S.A. If this trend continues, let’s consider a hypothetical scenario: Suppose that in the next election, Germany fully aligns itself with a Trumpist U.S.A., would that suddenly mean that Germany is no longer part of Europe simply because you disagree with its politics?

You really want this thread to descend into a political face-off one don't you?

Happy to discuss this on a reddit thread or even on private chat, but not here as it would most certainly violate the code of conduct. Which I have to say, you already have done several times in this thread.

But in more general terms. If Germany moved further to the right, further even than the UK already has, and the UK likely will at the next GE. We would not be playing videogames much any more and country tags would be the least of our concerns. More likely we will be dodging nukes.. well I say we. I'll be vaporised in the first few mins as I live within 25miles of "that place in the Highlands".

No, I am trying to show that what you propose is not really workable without opening a can of worms

Did not answer my question, which was: "Would that suddenly mean that Germany is no longer part of Europe simply because you disagree with its politics?"

edit: I haven’t mentioned it much because the focus has been on Russia, as it’s an easy target. However, there are many other European countries that also fall outside your arbitrary 'Modern Europe' classification, such as Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Moldova, and Belarus. I’m especially interested in how you plan to classify Belarus, which is an Eastern European country that doesn’t neatly fit into your narrative. If you get your "Made in Europe" badge , it most definitly should go to Belarusian developers as well.

If that happened, Europe would cease to exist at all, as would the UK, Russia and the United States of America. But I'll humour you. If Germany became a fascist dictatorship once more, I would weep for the rest of my life. Brussels would likely remove them from the EU. Would they be geologically separate, no. Would they become culturally separate, most definitely. Would I die to help my German family become free from such a scourge again. Without even thinking twice.

Sigh... Getting a straight answer from you is like pulling teeth from a chicken. Trying to sift through the emotional rhetoric you use to obscure your contradictions is exhausting. That said, your response contradicts itself, which only highlights how difficult it would be to implement a 'Made in Europe' badge.

You somehow managed to say that Germany would both be part of Europe and not be part of Europe, all while claiming that Europe itself would cease to exist. There is no logic here, just emotions.

Well done. Clear as mud.

edit -and by showing this, I think I am done for now.

Thank the maker!

(PS. Good thing there is no such thing as a God or a Maker :))

But we are touched by His Noodly Appendage!!

Nobody is going to be 100% clean on this issue. You're going to find that almost everyone is going to be dirty somehow even if the developer is in Europe. They may use a US publisher or use US location services to translate their game to other languages. If they're not selling their game exclusively on GOG, they're doing business with US-based stores. Regardless of which storefronts they use, they're accepting purchases from US-based customers because they want our money.

Even GOG itself is going to fail the no US purity test. They still sell games with US developers, publishers, and/or localization. They accept purchases from US customers. GOG really can't afford to give up the revenue from doing business with the US.

And that's another thing. People want to be r/AmericaBad, but the country is not a monolith. There are plenty of people here that hate our government far more than you ever could due to being impacted directly on things we didn't even vote for.

Also one of the absolute least ethical companies on the entire planet is Nestlé, which is based in Switzerland. Nestlé engages in aggressive marketing of infant formula over breastfeeding in developing countries, steals water, doesn't engage in fair labor practices, engages in price fixing, participates in deforestation, and routinely spreads disinformation about recycling. Every Nestlé product with chocolate is the result of child trafficking and/or slave labor. This company does so much evil all by itself that I'm sure that there's something that Nestlé has done that I forgot to mention.

And I'm not saying this as a WhatAboutIsm.

I'm saying good luck on that US boycott when it comes to games, but you should seriously boycott Nestlé. The company doesn't deserve a pass just because it is based out of a European country where the country itself is perceived as ethical.