CD Projekt Red Heaps Bullshit Via Tweet After Removing Game To Appease China

from the pooh-pooh dept

One of the more delightful oddities of 2018, a year that was at least a zillion times better than this one, was the emergence of Chinese President Xi's razor-thin skin when it comes to being compared to Winnie the Pooh. This all got spotlighted here in America when John Oliver dove into Chinese political leadership, mentioning the Winnie the Pooh thing, and got his name and HBO's site effectively banned from the Chinese internet. It's all rather funny until you realize both that this is a symptom of the horrifying restrictions on freedom the Chinese government has put in place and when you consider that the subsequent two-plus years has seen China supercharge its own thin-skin and exert pressure on spineless Western companies to do its censoring for it. All of the sudden, the laughter falls away.

Which brings us to GOG, the video game online store run by CD Projekt Red. At 4am on December 16th, Red Candle Games, makers of the well reviewed horror video game Devotion announced on Twitter that the game would be published to GOG on December 18th. By 9:14am the same day, GOG announced that the game in fact would not be released on GOG, citing "messages from gamers."

Just so everyone is clear, that tweet is bullshit. Unless, that is, the gamers being referenced are devoted gamers that also happen to work for the Chinese government. See, Devotion has something of a history, specifically because of the whole President Xi and Winnie the Pooh thing.

Devotion is considered one of the finest horror games of the past decade, but it has proved a controversial one. Following its release in the spring of 2019, Devotion was found to contain an unflattering reference to China's president, Xi Jinping. The discovery sparked an outcry among Chinese players, leading to the withdrawal of Chinese distributors, the closure of Red Candle's account on Weibo, one of China's largest social media platforms, and the removal of the game from Steam in China.

Red Candle, which is based in Taiwan, has apologised at length for what it says was a placeholder asset, accidentally transferred to the final release. These comments were not enough to stem the backlash, however, and a week after sale, the developer pulled the game from Steam in all territories to perform unspecified fixes. It never returned.

It is unclear at the time of this writing whether the Xi dig, previously blamed laughably on a stock asset mistake, was in the version to be released by GOG. Still, given the previous freak-out by the Chinese government over the game, that may not even matter. What is clear, however, is that GOG and CD Projekt Red is facing swift backlash over its decision to deplatform the game, its pathetic attempt to hide the reason behind that deplatforming, and for generally shitting the bed on this whole issue.

And there's plenty more after that.

What's obvious is just what a self-own this is on the part of GOG and CD Projekt Red. GOG didn't have to work out a deal to publish Devotion on its store, but it did. Once it did, it didn't have to bow at the altar of Chinese censorship, but it did. Once it did that, GOG didn't have to try to obfuscate its reason for doing so in a way that treated its own customers as though they were massive idiots, but it did.

And now it has a backlash on its hands, all of its own making.

Filed Under: china, devotion, streisand effect, winnie the pooh, xi jianping
Companies: cd projekt red, gog