Red Candle Games can't seem to catch a break with their horror game Devotion. Last year, the game was released on Steam, but was quickly pulled within its launch week, after players found that the game had a poster that compared Xi Jinping--the Chinese president--to Winnie the Pooh. While Red Candle Games stated that the inclusion of the poster was due to a technical issue, the game remains pulled from sale on Steam to this day. Following the incident, Devotion's publisher in China, Indievent, lost its business license, and while a direct reason was never specified outside of "violating relevant laws", it was implied that allowing Devotion to release with the said image included in its files was why.

After being unable to find success on Steam, it seemed that Devotion would be able to release on GOG, as Red Candle Games announced the game for a December 18th launch. However, shortly after said reveal, GOG put out an official statement saying they had decided to refuse Devotion to be listed on their storefront, due to "receiving many messages from gamers". The decision to block the game from sale has garnered backlash, with "fellow indie developer" Glass Bottom Games demanding CD Projekt Red and GOG remove their upcoming title SkateBIRD from the platform.

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[Big Man Tyrone2]

welcome to the generation of snowflakes who can't take a joke.

This isn't a, "snowflake" issue. It's an issue of a corporate power bowing to what they love most: money.

 

[Bladexdsl]

This isn't a, "snowflake" issue. It's an issue of a corporate power bowing to what they love most: money.

no it;s not laughter is forbidden in china so they don't understand a joke

 

[Seliph]

That's sad to hear. I got this game last year (luckily) and it was one of my favorite games of the year. Loved the graphics and music, the story was compelling and shocking but very sad. This game did a lot of things I haven't seen before and it's a shame that the CCP are bitches.

I highly suggest "acquiring" this game if you can figure out how to.

Also wow I didn't realize CDPR owns GOG, quite the double whammy considering they're already getting shit about Cyberpunk. I wouldn't mind seeing CDPR going under considering that the studio honestly sucks (despite the Witcher games being pretty good) but I doubt that'll happen.

 

[Silent_Gunner]

Pretty Dumb if you ask me .............. especially after playing Cyberpunk Most of this week ...dildos everywhere ass eating posters ...... Jonny Silverhand having sex and worst of all .. posters saying pineapple on pizza is illegal ...........

This is different. This is a government telling corporations what can or can't be published. I don't know how much influence the CCP has in this particular situation, and who really knows, but thanks to a leak dating back to 2016 about 2 million CCP members being in the US, and trying to influence major corporations like Facebook, Google, meeting with governors and having photos taken with said governors, and politicians on both sides of the aisle, and all of the changes I've been reading about comments getting shadowbanned on YT as of late, I seriously hope people are starting to wake up and realize that maybe us being 100% dependent on China for a lot of important stuff in our supply chain is a very dangerous idea. You think, if they were to somehow conquer us, that we wouldn't get treated like the Uighurs, those who got massacred at Tiananmen Square, and those in the HK protests? And we should depend on these guys to produce everything?

And then we have a bombshell being dropped in the Project Amistad News Conference about the 2020 election here:



tl;dw - Mark Zuckerberg paid for poll watchers to be removed from the swing states' vote ballot processing centers, as well as the windows being covered up for those who are trying to see what these facilities had to hide. If there was no foul play going on, why the lack of transparency?

 

[jt_1258]

not even a chance to remove said poster? well then

 

[FAST6191]

Bend that knee huh.

I wonder if we could get a p2p game distro setup going on (throw in some terms like distributed ledger, blockchain and what have you if you want) as this companies owning storefronts lark is clearly not working.

 

[Viri]

Poles fear the Chinese reds!

Also, you have to be a very very thin skinned bitch to get offended by jokes about your leadership and go as far as getting a video game pulled from store fronts over it. But you have to be an even more thin skinned bitch, to get a cartoon character banned for 1.5 billion people, because people compared you to it.

 

[J-Machine]

tencent no doubt was the one who complained cause chinese companies by law have to answer to winnie the xi. I personally loved the game devotion. Getting real tired of that ass hat dictating our lives and what we are allowed to enjoy

 

[qbdp]

A pineapple on pizza comrade!

We are many, and we will be heard. PINEAPPLE ON PIZZA IS DELICIOUS!

 

[Silent_Gunner]

Bend that knee huh.

I wonder if we could get a p2p game distro setup going on (throw in some terms like distributed ledger, blockchain and what have you if you want) as this companies owning storefronts lark is clearly not working.

Yeah, IDK anymore...

...I actually don't know what to do now. I know, at the end of the day, no one goes into business to lose money, and Valve is no different. They were, as far as I've experienced up until now, one of the last gaming companies outside of CDPR to provide the kind of service that they have that I could get behind unlike some of the other storefronts. I know that there's been some games pulled from Steam before, or that some games were sold as the censored versions when there were mods and guides on Steam itself telling you how to uncensor it, but I've never seen it to where they suddenly decide to bend the knee. I don't even understand why they'd even need to considering that, last I checked, Valve wasn't answering to anyone above them. They aren't a studio under EA's thumb to be drained of resources pumping out Half-Life after Half-Life like the Duggars pump out kids; they made games that were fun and still are fun to this day, and didn't seem to do something unless it was to innovate in some way that would never had been allowed to be done at any other company. Steam Input is the main reason why a HTPC being functional with wireless devices is much more convenient than it used to be.

I'm kind of stuck. Do I stop supporting Steam, and look into "other avenues" of playing games? I was already planning to abandon Windows 10 at some point. I could use Lutris to start playing a lot of games as well.

I don't really know for sure what to do after this...

 

[FAST6191]

Yeah, IDK anymore...

...I actually don't know what to do now. I know, at the end of the day, no one goes into business to lose money, and Valve is no different. They were, as far as I've experienced up until now, one of the last gaming companies outside of CDPR to provide the kind of service that they have that I could get behind unlike some of the other storefronts. I know that there's been some games pulled from Steam before, or that some games were sold as the censored versions when there were mods and guides on Steam itself telling you how to uncensor it, but I've never seen it to where they suddenly decide to bend the knee. I don't even understand why they'd even need to considering that, last I checked, Valve wasn't answering to anyone above them. They aren't a studio under EA's thumb to be drained of resources pumping out Half-Life after Half-Life like the Duggars pump out kids; they made games that were fun and still are fun to this day, and didn't seem to do something unless it was to innovate in some way that would never had been allowed to be done at any other company. Steam Input is the main reason why a HTPC being functional with wireless devices is much more convenient than it used to be.

I'm kind of stuck. Do I stop supporting Steam, and look into "other avenues" of playing games? I was already planning to abandon Windows 10 at some point. I could use Lutris to start playing a lot of games as well.

I don't really know for sure what to do after this...

As far as I am concerned Steam were never on my side.
Their responses to second hand games alone saying all I need to know there.

 

[TehCupcakes]

The Chinese government is more toxic than my Overwatch matches.

 

[pedro702]

people need to realize that this huge company's have alot of shareholders and i bet many of them are Chinese, and if they dont like the jokes about them they can persuade said company's where they probably have significant percentages to take it down or else money will be short, or future decisions will be harder to make without their vote.

Its a matter of saving their asses sort to speak since they dont think the trouble would be worth it, if it was like a gta game where they know they would make billions they probably would let it slide, but an indie dev their like not worth the trouble to do this battle tbh, and if we were on their shoes we probably would do the same decision for the good of the company.

 

[DSoryu]

First Hololive, now this? Damn

 

[MarkDarkness]

Disappointed but not surprised.

 

[MarkDarkness]

Yeah, IDK anymore...

...I actually don't know what to do now. I know, at the end of the day, no one goes into business to lose money, and Valve is no different. They were, as far as I've experienced up until now, one of the last gaming companies outside of CDPR to provide the kind of service that they have that I could get behind unlike some of the other storefronts. I know that there's been some games pulled from Steam before, or that some games were sold as the censored versions when there were mods and guides on Steam itself telling you how to uncensor it, but I've never seen it to where they suddenly decide to bend the knee. I don't even understand why they'd even need to considering that, last I checked, Valve wasn't answering to anyone above them. They aren't a studio under EA's thumb to be drained of resources pumping out Half-Life after Half-Life like the Duggars pump out kids; they made games that were fun and still are fun to this day, and didn't seem to do something unless it was to innovate in some way that would never had been allowed to be done at any other company. Steam Input is the main reason why a HTPC being functional with wireless devices is much more convenient than it used to be.

I'm kind of stuck. Do I stop supporting Steam, and look into "other avenues" of playing games? I was already planning to abandon Windows 10 at some point. I could use Lutris to start playing a lot of games as well.

I don't really know for sure what to do after this...

I still trust Steam the most as the storefront making the fairest calls. Everyone slips up. Overall they have been very strong in their anti-censorship actions, and basically created a market for games with strong sexual content in the West, which before was secluded in dinky little publisher websites even though there was appetite in the market for them.

 

[Pipistrele]

First the awful situation of Cyberpunk 2077, and now this. CDPR scored two strikes in one week, talking about how to quickly losing the support of your community.

CDPR isn't going to lose any community support over these things anytime soon, trust me.

 

[Silent_Gunner]

CDPR isn't going to lose any community support over these things anytime soon, trust me.

IDK if they have the cult of Bethesda and their "the fans will fix it anyways, so we don't care" mentality when it comes to their single-player games.

 

[Viri]

The scary part, is this is only going to get much worse. If you don't think this is a big deal, you really should. This is only the beginning.

 

[Silent_Gunner]

The scary part, is this is only going to get much worse. If you don't think this is a big deal, you really should. This is only the beginning.

Yeah, remember when we were to flatten the curve in the first month of this pandemic?

I wish everyone in my family was more willing to be mobile to move to a state that never locked down *coughs in South Dakota*.