CDPR really isn't looking good lately. It was based around a different topic, but I think this was a good insight by Shamus Young a couple of days ago:
CDPR really isn't looking good lately. It was based around a different topic, but I think this was a good insight by Shamus Young a couple of days ago:
This is incredibly dangerous. People cut this company a lot of slack based on the perception that this operation is run by “fellow gamers” who just want to make the best games they can. It won’t take much to destroy that perception, and once it’s gone they will never get it back. They’ll be just another corporate monolith.
Having the audience feel like you’re one of them is precious. You can’t buy that with television commercials. You can’t sustain it with branding deals and sponsorships. You can’t attain it by pandering to the crowd at E3. The only way to have your audience embrace you as a member of the tribe is by setting yourself apart from the corporations you’re competing with. You need to understand / anticipate the audience needs and expectations, and meet those expectations.
That’s nice if you can pull it off, but if customers catch you lying and engaging in deceptive practices then they’ll see all of your previous virtue as a mask. And I can’t imagine anything more nakedly deceptive than forbidding reviewers from showing off footage from an infamously buggy game.
Wow, how pathetic. I was expecting the reason to be that the game included some shocking graphic content, but no, it's just because GOG want to kiss some dictator's ass.
Deovtion’s hidden piece of art that caused so much fuss last year contained what news reports at the time described as “an ancient style of writing” that read “Xi Jinping” and “Winnie the Pooh”—a meme that has been outlawed in China thanks to the particular sensitivities of its leader, President Xi Jinping. He, some say, bears an uncanny physical resemblance to the cute little bear.
Wow, how pathetic. I was expecting the reason to be that the game included some shocking graphic content, but no, it's just because GOG want to kiss some dictator's ass.
I mean... you’re asking a for profit company to voluntarily do something that may get them banned from the Chinese market and lose whatever percent of their sales that entails (possibly even an...
it's just because GOG want to kiss some dictator's ass.
I mean... you’re asking a for profit company to voluntarily do something that may get them banned from the Chinese market and lose whatever percent of their sales that entails (possibly even an existential threat, depending on the business). It’s not exactly surprising that this occurred.
This is like getting upset at a State when they give ridiculous tax incentives to a business to bring them in. Yes, the State may have made a bad deal (see: Foxconn + Wisconsin), but really the issue is that there’s a lack of federal regulation on the topic that creates a zero-sum game that only benefits large companies: if I as a State don’t try to bribe Jeff Bezos to build an Amazon center in my locality, it’s going to go somewhere else. Meanwhile Bezos et. al. come out with more benefits as a result of the bidding war.
Long semi-related analogy aside, really the only way to get around this is a government policy these companies can point to and say “Look China, we’d love to help you out, but I legally can’t”, or to have buy-in from most of the US economy (are they really prepared to ban all US companies?).... although it’s hard to say how you could craft that type of thing with the dysfunctional cess-pool of a federal government that can’t figure out how to get money to people during times of historic unemployment.
I’m not trying to argue for or against their decision, but just point out it’s... just not that simple for a company to have morals on its own, particularly when it might seriously impact their bottom line.
So... the funny thing is that GOG doesn't operate in China. It was never possible to buy from GOG in the country, so it's not like they were ever going to lose some sales from that market.
So... the funny thing is that GOG doesn't operate in China. It was never possible to buy from GOG in the country, so it's not like they were ever going to lose some sales from that market.
I don't think the power dynamic between the GOG-CCP scenario and the Amazon-State example is the same. In the Amazon-State example, the State wants Amazon to build the center there, so Amazon have...
I don't think the power dynamic between the GOG-CCP scenario and the Amazon-State example is the same. In the Amazon-State example, the State wants Amazon to build the center there, so Amazon have more power than the State -- the State has to bribe Bezos or create a tax break to incentivise/persuade Amazon to establish a center there. In the GOG-CCP scenario, GOG want to trade in China but the CCP have the power because CCP can ban GOP from the market if CCP don't like what GOP is selling.
I completely understand that I'm "asking a for profit company to voluntarily do something that may get them banned from the Chinese market and lose whatever percent of their sales that entails", that's my point. This is one of the reasons Marxists say there is "no ethical consumption under capitalism" -- if companies are willing and able to avoid or ignore ethical issues because they impact their bottom line, then ethics effectively don't exist, the only factor determining if something can be sold is if it can be sold, regardless of the consequences.
As far as 'existential threat' goes, I would bet that pissing off the indie developer community is a greater existential threat for GOG than not being able to sell in PRC -- if you have no supply then you have nothing to sell anywhere. I presume GOG is already turning a profit selling in other markets anyway, so they probably don't 'need' the PRC market anyway (it's a different question but I fail to see why companies have to fill as much market as possible, if you are making profit and the probability of your existing market disappearing is small then a business can continue to exist without market expansion, but I guess that isn't very capitalist of me! :P )
Their reasoning is what's really rubbing me the wrong way, even hours after I first read it: All I saw were people celebrating that they would be selling it. This feels extremely dishonest on...
Their reasoning is what's really rubbing me the wrong way, even hours after I first read it:
“After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store.”
All I saw were people celebrating that they would be selling it. This feels extremely dishonest on their part to justify their about-face with this since it flies in the face of what the gaming community's actual sentiments.
Kinda funny that this company that grinds their workers to a fine powder for overhyped commodity entertainment AND cowtows to an oppressive government releases a game with the name of Cyberpunk...
Kinda funny that this company that grinds their workers to a fine powder for overhyped commodity entertainment AND cowtows to an oppressive government releases a game with the name of Cyberpunk and this all comes out a week later. Now that's company synergy.
I'm terribly disappointed by this. I was looking forward to Devotion eventually returning to digital distribution, and I typically prefer buying games on GOG than on Steam. But for however mildly...
I'm terribly disappointed by this. I was looking forward to Devotion eventually returning to digital distribution, and I typically prefer buying games on GOG than on Steam. But for however mildly inconvenient it is for me, it's got to be really distressing for Red Candle Games to be yanked around by GOG like this.
CDPR really isn't looking good lately. It was based around a different topic, but I think this was a good insight by Shamus Young a couple of days ago:
Wow, how pathetic. I was expecting the reason to be that the game included some shocking graphic content, but no, it's just because GOG want to kiss some dictator's ass.
I mean... you’re asking a for profit company to voluntarily do something that may get them banned from the Chinese market and lose whatever percent of their sales that entails (possibly even an existential threat, depending on the business). It’s not exactly surprising that this occurred.
This is like getting upset at a State when they give ridiculous tax incentives to a business to bring them in. Yes, the State may have made a bad deal (see: Foxconn + Wisconsin), but really the issue is that there’s a lack of federal regulation on the topic that creates a zero-sum game that only benefits large companies: if I as a State don’t try to bribe Jeff Bezos to build an Amazon center in my locality, it’s going to go somewhere else. Meanwhile Bezos et. al. come out with more benefits as a result of the bidding war.
Long semi-related analogy aside, really the only way to get around this is a government policy these companies can point to and say “Look China, we’d love to help you out, but I legally can’t”, or to have buy-in from most of the US economy (are they really prepared to ban all US companies?).... although it’s hard to say how you could craft that type of thing with the dysfunctional cess-pool of a federal government that can’t figure out how to get money to people during times of historic unemployment.
I’m not trying to argue for or against their decision, but just point out it’s... just not that simple for a company to have morals on its own, particularly when it might seriously impact their bottom line.
So... the funny thing is that GOG doesn't operate in China. It was never possible to buy from GOG in the country, so it's not like they were ever going to lose some sales from that market.
I don't think the power dynamic between the GOG-CCP scenario and the Amazon-State example is the same. In the Amazon-State example, the State wants Amazon to build the center there, so Amazon have more power than the State -- the State has to bribe Bezos or create a tax break to incentivise/persuade Amazon to establish a center there. In the GOG-CCP scenario, GOG want to trade in China but the CCP have the power because CCP can ban GOP from the market if CCP don't like what GOP is selling.
I completely understand that I'm "asking a for profit company to voluntarily do something that may get them banned from the Chinese market and lose whatever percent of their sales that entails", that's my point. This is one of the reasons Marxists say there is "no ethical consumption under capitalism" -- if companies are willing and able to avoid or ignore ethical issues because they impact their bottom line, then ethics effectively don't exist, the only factor determining if something can be sold is if it can be sold, regardless of the consequences.
As far as 'existential threat' goes, I would bet that pissing off the indie developer community is a greater existential threat for GOG than not being able to sell in PRC -- if you have no supply then you have nothing to sell anywhere. I presume GOG is already turning a profit selling in other markets anyway, so they probably don't 'need' the PRC market anyway (it's a different question but I fail to see why companies have to fill as much market as possible, if you are making profit and the probability of your existing market disappearing is small then a business can continue to exist without market expansion, but I guess that isn't very capitalist of me! :P )
Their reasoning is what's really rubbing me the wrong way, even hours after I first read it:
All I saw were people celebrating that they would be selling it. This feels extremely dishonest on their part to justify their about-face with this since it flies in the face of what the gaming community's actual sentiments.
Kinda funny that this company that grinds their workers to a fine powder for overhyped commodity entertainment AND cowtows to an oppressive government releases a game with the name of Cyberpunk and this all comes out a week later. Now that's company synergy.
I'm terribly disappointed by this. I was looking forward to Devotion eventually returning to digital distribution, and I typically prefer buying games on GOG than on Steam. But for however mildly inconvenient it is for me, it's got to be really distressing for Red Candle Games to be yanked around by GOG like this.