The company blamed “a series of mistakes” and inconsistent font rendering.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20260606180621/https://www.theverge.com/games/945088/gog-apologizes-email-nazi-symbols-the-end-of-the-sun

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[–] 47 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (15 children)

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 consumers we see around here. Just another instance of Steam winning by doing nothing while competition trips over itself again.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago (12 children)

    "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?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Dont forget Valve's lootboxes.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    I actually wanted to mention that and the "trading cards" that literally milk the users out of thin air, but I didn't find a good place for them in my post. Thanks for mentioning them.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Please explain, how the trading cards, that you get for free, can just ignore or even sell for a few cents, milk anything out of anyone.

    Is it because Steam forces you to complete badges for all your games, otherwise their Death Squad will come to your home?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Before, you just played the game. Now when you play the game, these things fill your "inventory" out of thin air, and you can make transactions with them including buying them (to complete your collection out of FOMO, etc), of which Valve earns a cut out of them, again, out of thin air. Now scale that up to millions of users. Hmmm, it IS milking! Can't expect any less from the House of Valve.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    You can still just play the game, nothing has changed. It's extremely easy to just ignore everything to do with the inventory on Steam, which a lot of people do.

    If you don't want to give Valve and the dev money, you can also trade the cards with other people directly.

    You could also recycle certain items into gems and use those to craft booster packs, to eventually get a full set completely by yourself.

    Also, the only thing the trading cards are for at this point are the badges, that you can "show off" on your profile. All the other stuff (emoticons or wallpapers) can be bought directly in the Points Shop.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    You can still just play the game, nothing has changed.

    I just explained how things have changed and how the casino earns money out of thin air with little effort on their part. Better yet, you just gave more examples of this House doing just that:

    All the other stuff (emoticons or wallpapers) can be bought directly in the Points Shop.

    These are all ways in which users get milked. Don't forget the lootboxes.

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