Submitted 19 hours ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to gaming@lemmy.zip
https://www.theverge.com/games/945088/gog-apologizes-email-nazi-symbols-the-end-of-the-sun
The company blamed “a series of mistakes” and inconsistent font rendering.
Archived version: archive.is/…/gog-apologizes-email-nazi-symbols-th…
Hey! On other news, Coca-Cola has denounced Putin and his invasion of Ukraine just 5 minutes ago! Aren’t they brave!? They will be absolutely exciting the ruzzian market in just 20 years! They are so quick. Such a symbol of democracy.
I’m struggling to figure out how they even ended up with it. So far as I can tell, 𖥞 is from a symbol from the Cameroon Bamum language, having nothing to do with the game. ꥟ is a character from Sumatran dialects, but it at least looks like a sun, so I could maybe see that. That said, the ϟ, nonetheless repeated, seems inexcusable. Its specifically Greek koppa, not the Old Norse ᛋ (the sowilō character they reference in their apology) and I see no reason to use it twice.
Honestly, the only way I can think of that this was included, was it being AI generated and unmonitored. Why else would they combine a random Bamum symbol, a Sumatran symbol, and what is pretty clearly an SS emblem?
I was assuming that they used that wheel symbol as a stand-in for the black sun symbol that the Nazis also used. But I also wonder if it’s just AI and some very dumb people. The AI might have encountered these symbols in training on some weird occult neo nazi forums or something, and when prompted to generate some cool runes, it out these in. Either that or the person who did this knows exactly what they’re doing and just pretends to have made a mistake.
GOG is Polish right? I’d expect better of them, the SS symbol should be commonly known. There’s no way this should’ve gotten past multiple people, it’s inexcusable
To me, it is the fact that they used that S-like symbol twice in a row. I don’t care what that symbol actually means on its own. But having two of the character together is clearly an intentional subtle wink from someone.
intentional subtle wink
I’m not convinced it is, just because the other symbols are so random. Like, if it was a human, you’d think they’d at least use other runes, or would use something more standard like, ☉ or ☼, or would at least put in some effort to disguise it. I mean, if they actually wanted to make it subtle, they may even have actually used the sowilō symbol, given that that is what the original runes originate from. Instead, its Koppa, undisguised, front and centre. An AI on the other hand, would just output common patterns of symbols, such as this.
Then again, Nazis aren’t exactly known for being smart, so…
These were some pretty egregious mistakes indeed. I think the biggest one is noticing that it is inappropriate-looking for audiences in Germany, but somehow they didn’t stop to think whether it would be appropriate for everyone else?
I’m not going to boycot GOG over a major gaffe like that but, it’s a mournful day for the anti-Steam purist gaming cosumers we see around here. Just another instance of Steam winning by doing nothing while competition trips over itself again.
Yeah this seems like a very stupid unforced error. The devs didn’t provide this, they internally were like “don’t send that to Germany, yikes!”, and then went ahead anyway?
Even if they’d been like “Oh, you’re right that looks a bit too Nazi, let’s just put one of them so it doesn’t” then this would be another boring marketing email.
“winning by doing nothing” They do stuff. Like killing ownership, buying tons of yachts because their owner is a literal billionaire, and squeezing every last cent while gaslighting everyone into thinking they’re somehow “pro-consumer”. This is how they got here in the first place. They also appear to have a growing hate problem, but I haven’t yet read the links I’ll be sharing here, so take these with a grain of salt for now: 1, 2. They get away with all this because they have a captive audience, each user doesn’t want to give up their library, or each user has already bought one of those steam devices becoming even more captive.
GOG doesn’t have a captive audience, and this is by their own design. We take their DRM-free, launcher-free nature for granted. Yet it seem they don’t understand that themselves, and continue burning the good will they earned on things like this, or continuing their obsession with LLM generated art. They can’t keep tanking controversy after controversy.
DRM-free can continue without GOG, but it’ll be handicapped severely without them. Is this what GOG wants?
Thanks for showing up. And yes you’re correct, “doing nothing” is a meme, dervied from the fact that Epic, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony are all outwardly very anti-consumer, while Valve is simply less so. Yes they have done some shady things over 20 years, however they have also done wonders in the field of Linux game compatibility, helping (credit to the non-Valve developers) break Microsoft’s monopoly on operating systems for PC gaming. In contrast, GOG has done little besides provide the occasional script, Linux version of their official library manager is only now in development after 10 years of begging for it.
Yes, you can still play DRM-free games, FOSS games and get some games directly from the publisher, but in terms of distributors, you’re essentially left with itch.io (unless the time they removed nsfw games from CC processor pressure is also a bridge too far for you).
Dont forget Valve’s lootboxes.
In itself, the argument is sound. A lot of media is censored specifically for China or predominantly muslim-governed countries. It’s just standard corporate bootlicking.
The context makes it awkward. For example, most of Asia neither knows nor cares about nazis because it’s not who oppressed them, so I don’t seem them having an issue with it in this sense. But then again, I’m not sure of Gog’s presence in Asia…
Oh no
The second comment from the devs is telling - sounds like they sent the message and then GOG just appended some emojis to it, and the devs were unaware.
Now ofc that’s from the devs directly, but considering it’s so oddly specific, it’s hard to imagine they made that up.
Thought the headline said “GOP apologizes for emailing people Nazi symbols”… Only thing that stood out as odd was that they’d apologize: I mean, that’s their brand.
The young republicans would double down.
isn’t archive. is that shit site?
OH COME ON!!! Just when I start buying from GOG after hearing good things for years.
Now they’re nazi???
Nope. It’s too late to request refunds, but it’s never too late to not ever buy from them again.
Seems like it was a mistake from a staff member but if you want to go scorched earth on an entire company for the actions of whoever made that email then go ahead and buy licenses you don’t own from the competition.
This is pretty bad but having read the apology and explanation it was either one or two people who made this email or one of two people using AI assistance that made the email.
Seeing as how they apologized and acknowledged the mistake and mentioned being understaffed on a banking holiday I’m not going to hold the actions of one or two against the entire company who said they were against that action.
Also, Polish people famously hate Nazi’s as anyone should so I’m really just not biting into the whole ragebait on this to be honest.
Nazis down voting, don’t worry about it
You’re downvoted for throwing the Nazi word around like it’s cabbage. People might agree this situation was a fuckup, going full tilt on it though is an overreaction.
Not op, but I struggle to see how this could possibly be an accident. I don’t feel like accusing GOG of at least having a nazi problem to some capacity in their company is that unbelievable. Like I aint gonna be buying from them anymore, cause like I said, I struggle to see how this could have been an accident.
Okay buddy Nazi.
I mean I see what they were trying to do. The kolovrat has a lot of controversy that it’s debated to be a modern symbol of neo slavic pegans. Not so much a neo nazi symbol, but a lof work that the creator of the kolovrat has faked a ton of historical slavic pegan records so take it as you will
The dude spent a fortune to get back his company, to do this?
I ha e yh3 email in question but I dont see the symbols.
It didn’t go out to everyone (I got it, partner didn’t). No clue wtf, really
German language version apparently didn’t have them, but other languages had the symbols. No idea if there were later waves of the newsletter that were send out after they were “corrected.”
ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 11 hours ago
So there’s only one of the other runes, but they doubled up the lightning rune to create the SS symbol. What an unfortunate “coincidence”.
Image
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 10 hours ago
And all three coincidentally famous Nazi symbols.