Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (Dark Dungeons, The Gamers, JourneyQuest, etc.) just pulled all of their films from the catalog here in response to offensive tweets made by GOG's Twitter account over the past few months. You may say: "So what?", but it got me thinking about the larger implications something like this could have. We've seen how controversy averse Disney has been of late when it's comes to offensive tweets. They get rid of anyone they feel is a liability to their brand (Roseanne Barr, James Gunn, Chuck Wendig). Currently there are people contacting developers and publishers (including Disney) that partner with GOG, showing them the tweets in question and trying to get them to pull their games. There are thinkpieces being written and YouTube videos being made. If a big fish like Disney were to pull all their games over this, other major publishers like Activision, Bethesda, Electronic Arts, Square-Enix and Ubisoft might decide to follow suit. Yeeps. This could get real serious real fast.

What tweets?

If other publishers pull their movies from GOG too, we'll be in serious trouble indeed.

Major publishers usually don't have complete fucking lunatics making their decisions. If they did, they wouldn't have become major publishers in the first place.

In the case of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, the choice was easy: free advertisement in the form of virtue signalling on Twatter by pulling their "movies" or making a grand total of $0.00 by leaving their "movies" on gog. Not exactly a hard choice, is it? However, if a company had actual money to loose, they might have second thoughts.

You might want to see the garbage fire thread ("stop caving to the mob").

As for publishers, it might happen. Linko's lack of presence suggests disciplinary action over this, which would suggest GOG is taking this as a serious threat to their company. If publishers do pull games, we at least know that our libraries won't be affected.

Not really. There could be many other and alot more realistic reasons as to why Linko is absent.

Saying they're virtue signalling implies you can read their minds, which you can't. That's why terms like virtue signalling are meaningless. Because you're assuming something you can't possibly know about someones motivations. Maybe the person who owns the company has a sibling who is trans and was genuinely offended, you don't know that so you shouldn't assume their motivations aren't genuine.

In any case, you're correct in saying that it isn't a loss for either party. The movies obviously don't sell well here.

NNNNNOOOOOO. Not the movies!!!!! What will happen to GOG if they just sell games!!!!!
Game over man. Game over.

Disney fired Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn over offensive tweets he made before he was hired by them. That cost them hundreds of millions. The script for Vol. 3 was finished and was gearing up to film soon. It was meant to launch a whole cosmic phase of Marvel films. They nuked it all to maintain their reputation. The filming has now been delayed to 2021 for a 2022 release (it's difficult to get all the actors schedules in sync after they missed the original window), which forces them to change their plans not just for Guardians, but for the rest of the MCU as well. If they'd go to those lengths with one of their major money-makers, it's not out of the realm of possibility that they'd pull their games here.

Theres a big difference between James Gunn and GOG. James Gunn made tweets which were blatently offensive. GOG most recently used a hastag that is used by some Trump thing (don't mean they supported them, as i've seen people use the same hastag for other things before.)

And none of GOG's tweets have been out right offensive. Its only been the few that will complain about any old thing that found them offensive.

Wait, these dickheads shat out YET ANOTHER transphobic tweet? You'd think they'd learn.

What was it this time?

/edit: Found it. Oh. Oh god. Just. Fucking. WOW. Jesus Melania Christ, you really fucked it up this time. Why why why why why why why why why why. These people are fighting for their right to be recognized in the face of a 100% fascist regime. Have an inch of respect for god's sake.

/edit2: @downvoters Your level of pathetic is infinite. Go back to kindergarten. Your online license is revoked.

I would think it would take a lot more to see movement from major players..
The more likely candidates would be smaller publishers who seek to gain popular attention by making "grand gestures".

People just need to stop posting in reflex on social media (or hell, stop using it at all). Snap stupid remarks and the instant outrages are both an equal problem nowdays. I see it on the forum here too, but more users here review their words before posting the message than you typically see on twitter or facebook.

They tweeted something with #WontBeErased.

WontBeErased is a human rights movement fiercely retaliating reported Trump administration plans to reverse Obama-era recognitions of gender fluidity.

The GOG Twitter account used the #WontBeErased hashtag as an advertising platform by using it to refer to classic games. (The hashtag is a response to the Trump Administration's rollbacks to federal non-discrimination protections for transgender people.)

Couldn't agree more, these jokes were pretty benign. At worst they were tone deaf. Much larger companies, with much larger marketing firms, have made even worse mistakes multiple times. The reaction to the jokes is pretty overblown.

I also agree that the James Gunn thing was orders of magnitude larger of an issue for Disney. There would have to be a major movement that picked this up and really pushed for retribution to get Disney to move, as was the case for James Gunn. GOG isn't a major player, in anything, not even in gaming really. I just don't see this being on anyones radar other than for a very niche crowd of trans gamers who are easily offended. I don't see there being much of a real blowback, not without GOG doing something more obviously on Disney's naughty list.