The email in the comments
Gaben, “we aren’t a monopoly there’s plenty of other publishers to buy from”
GOG
Steam once again using the winning strategy of doing nothing while your opponent fucks up
interesting how easily is for a company to not shoot itself in the foot if they don’t have public shareholders
Where’s the game store footgun meme?
People can shit on Valve all they want, but at least they never went full Nazi.
these symbols seem to render very differently on different devices. i got a wheel of hatchets, an eight-pointed star, and two futhark runes on desktop.
…which is why it’s at the very least irresponsible for them to send something like this. if there is actually intent here that only makes it worse.
Their “apology” actually admitted that they knew about the potential for rendering differences. They say they knew that certain symbols could render as Nazi icons, which is why they specifically excluded those symbols from the email they sent to German accounts.
But if we extend that same “we didn’t send it to Germany” thing to the logical conclusion, it means they intentionally sent it to everyone else even when knowing the potential for issues.
I made a complaint last year about one of their emails having a giant banner saying “MAKE GAMING GREAT AGAIN!” they made mildly appropriate noises. Seemed like the person on the other end really just wanted me to fuck entirely off asap.
You forgot to hide your name.
The screenshot is from the PCGamer article
MFW
I don’t have the email but I would assume those emojis in this case are Slavic neopaganist symbols, also known as rodnovery.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rodnover_symbols
Notice there is no double sig in there. Also note that Rodnovery is a neopagan religion, associated with nationalism. It’s the Slavic equivalent the Norse pantheon fetishism you see in the West in the form of Odinism.
You should assume they’re Nazi symbols because they are, even if Nazis stole a lot of symbols from everyone else. The sig was first adapted into the double sig in 1929 to be used as the Schutzstaffel logo
Yes, but. Big but.
The devs of the games included in that email signed off on it before it went out. The version the devs were shown had no “runes” included.
GOG has acknowledged that those runes can display on some devices distinctly as the symbol for the SS, so they did not send this email to subscribers subscribed in the German language. Instead of just using a different fucking symbol, or not using it twice in a row.
As far as I understand it, those are pretty random runes, not specifically Slavic at all.
Taken as a whole, it shows that they had some idea of how this would appear, and they went through with it anyway, for no obvious benefit.
Not a good look.
Yeah thinking about it using the lightning rune twice is really sus. Very hard to defend that.
As far as I understand it, those are pretty random runes, not specifically Slavic at all.
Not like specifically Slavic runes exist anyway.
Viewing this runes as they are, it comes to my mind the Black Sun symbol as 1st thought.
Edit: shit the game is called End of the Sun.
The Nazis didn’t invent those symbols, they appropriated them. It’s ridiculous that a group of assholes can erase centuries of history by misusing symbols
The nazis (in particular their graphic designer Walter Heck) did literally invent the sigrune/doppelrune, it doesn’t have roots in history and there is no excuse for them to have sent it given they admit they didn’t send it to germany. Like… no, there’s no justification for this one.
He didn’t invent shit. He copied a rune and appropriated it diagonally. S, N, Z whatever, it’s the same damn thing. Sowilo.
Ppl keep praising his ass here like he wrote the bible or some shit when all he did was take what was already there and twisted it.
he wrote the bible or some shit when all he did was take what was already there and twisted it
I have really bad news if you think this wasn’t exactly what happened when they wrote the bible…
Gog admitted they knew what the symbols represented when they chose not to send them to German subscribers. There’s legitimately no excuse for using Nazi symbols in this case, regardless of your ideas about where they may have originated.
I have really bad news if you think this wasn’t exactly what happened when they wrote the bible…
If you’re agreeing he didn’t invent shit, I’d recommend amending your comment saying that he didn’t. No need to add legitimacy where there isn’t any. No pressure though.
As for gog, the deed is done and out in the world. Whatever they do from here on out, it will be with this burden attached.
If you’re agreeing he didn’t invent shit
Not even slightly, but I don’t particularly feel like going on about how no human creation is truly original, waxing interminable over the distinction between symbols and concepts or, you know, defending a nazi right now.
it will be with this burden attached
Probably this will be forgiven provided they don’t do anything more indicative of actually being Nazis. I’m not sure it should be given the spectacular process failures needed to knowingly email out a bunch nazi symbology, their history of trans/homophobic jokes, their insanely miserable work culture… but it probably will be, much as all those previous examples were. It’s depressing.
The Elder Futhark predates Nazi Germany by well over 1,000 years. Wikipedia says it was used between the 2nd to 8th centuries.
And the skull and crossbones has been used since the 1700s - and yet people happily run around sporting the Jolly Roger, while someone openly wearing the Totenkopf is undeniably a nazi (or Graham Platner, who as far as I can tell is somehow actually just that dumb)
Graham knew what it was. He’s a murderous psycho, by his own admission. This aw shucks I didn’t realize this was a nazi symbol shit, is just that, shit. He joined the military because he wanted to kill humans. He went on back to back tours until they said no. He then became a MERC so he could get around that and keep killing people.
This is debatable. But when you’re using them all together though…
100 % ai. Llms love emojis in subject lines
The strange thing is that they did notice It and elected to not send it in German instead of just not putting the symbols in the subject.
Iirc Germany has laws against it, so they probably wanted to avoid legal issues.
This is really the whole incident is more than the sum of it’s parts stuff, but in a negative way.
