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GOG Fighting the Good Fight (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 13 points 2 months ago (17 children)

The Nazi thing is nota nitpick though. They need to address that properly instead of the “sorry we got caught” response they gave.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    GOG's founder did eventually give a better reply here (scroll to Mikee's comment): https://www.gog.com/forum/general/nazi_symbols_in_an_email_and_bs_excuse/page18

    I'm not convinced GOG owes us any explanation beyond that. Even in the worst case where the accusers are right and it was an intentional dog-whistle, the marketing guy who did it probably gave his superiors the same explanation we got, in which case GOG management genuinely believes they already 100% told us what happened.

    Also, the argument that GOG not sending the email to Germany proves they knew that it was bad ahead of time on an organizational level is common enough to be worth addressing here. It ignores how localization is often done, one person writing a template that then goes to others to localize and send out individually. I assume adding some review time between localization and send out is among the process changes they mentioned.

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

    Is this about the Gog Newsletter thing? I’m not 100% informed, but didn’t they pretty much admit that they weren’t aware that ᛋ displayed as ϟ in some devices?

    It’s not even a “sorry we got caught” thing, they had nothing to gain by sending a Nazi symbol in their newsletter. What more are they supposed to say?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    They specifically didn't send it to German accounts cause they knew it could be shown as Nazi symbolism.

    This isn't a "sorry we fucked up" this is a "we knew it could go wrong but didn't care enough to do anything about it".

    Personally I don't really care that much. These promotional emails aren't reviewed by every company member, so even if it was deliberately used Nazi symbolism, its at most someone in the advertising department. But I also understand why people are really upset about this.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago

    An explanation for them not sending it to Germany could be that the localization team for the German region, probably being more aware of such nuances, spotted it and removed it whereas those who did the localization for other regions just didn't spot it, so it slipped through.

    There could be arguments about communication between teams but, honestly, localization teams don't really need to communicate with one another so it isn't surprising that they didn't.

    Most likely it actually is a "oops we fucked up" situation.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (10 children)

    It's not a nitpick, but also that newsletter is not indicative of GOG being a Nazi organization. The idea that they specifically decided to advertise a new game based on Slavic mythology specifically so that they could send a mass advertisement to half their user base intentionally using Nazi symbolism is wild. It is much more likely that some marketing dimwit Googled "Slavic runes," and copied some random ones from the first site they found.

    Screenshot of the first result for "slavic emoji" on google

    It's one data point, not a pattern. Definitely something to watch out for, but there's literally nothing else in the history of the company to suggest that they have any white supremacist tendencies

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Almost like "slavic emoji" means something... Why does my dog keep crying?

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

    Given it was an advertisement for a game inspired by Slavic mythology, "Slavic emoji" means "advertisement for a game inspired by Slavic mythology" in this case. Do you think the developers of The End Of The Sun are nazis?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    The Slav's use the same emoji's as the rest of the world.

    I think some idiot was trying to be edgy (👀) and GOG's PR dept obviously sucks, they put the shit out to begin.

    btw, that's not a special slavic emoji

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

    It's literally the first result when searching the phrase "Slavic emoji" on google. Hanlon's razor applies. Most normal people are not aware of any nazi symbols other than the swastika

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

    Yeah I agree with most of what you said. It's concerning though, they could have easily responded with a responding “Nazi shit has no place here, super sorry we let that slip through”

    It is much more likely that some marketing dimwit Googled "Slavic runes," and copied some random ones from the first site they found.

    That's the part I find doubtful, this sequence can only be found on a site by or about Nazis. I feel like even the dumbest idiot would clock that, but I've underestimated idiots before

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    this sequence can only be found on a site by or about Nazis.

    I mean, that exact sequence is in the header of the first result for an ostensibly innocent google search. Spend some time where normal people hang out, and you'll find that a lot of them can't clock Nazi dogwhistles. I've personally had to explain the significance of "14/88" to people who thought I was nuts for calling the My Pillow guy a nazi

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