Got this email this morning from GOG. Choosing this as the subject line was certainly a decision.

  • Demifriend [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    29·
    2 days ago

    A reddit account claiming to be the creators of the game has been posting this response:

    Dev Response

    WE ARE THE CREATORS OF THE GAME. Hello guys!

    1. FIRST OF ALL - WE HAVE 0 INSPIRATION OR CONNECTIONS TO NEO-NAZIS (To be honest, for a long time we didn’t even know that there could be a problem with that when making a fantasy game about Slavic culture).

    We are the creators of the game. We are a couple from Poland. (Our YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONlF1_qr8ekpHezov03Rww). We want to underline that our game and we ourselves have 0 connotations with any neo-Nazis or the Nazi community. It is a fantasy game placed in a Slavic fantasy universe. Yes, we are using the “kolovrat” symbol in the game, but we explain it as a symbol of the “God of the Sun” or “Sun”. In the game, we even explain that some ancient symbols were adapted by the Nazis. Our kolovrat symbol was based on historical sources of ancient statues:https://sagy.vikingove.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/kolovrat-recko.jpg. (Yes we are now aware it was greek statues, but overall it was symbol of the sun and it is historically confirmed) (Sun is very important for our game storytelling)

    But still, some time ago we decided to change the logo symbol to a “roseta”, which is also a sun symbol but doesn’t have the connotations that we weren’t aware of earlier. (Also, some reviewers didn’t want to review the game because of that, and basically, we started to be aware of the problem at that time. Because of that small mistake it was much harder to do marketing, and the game was our 8 years of work . Worst thing was that no one before release of the game never mentioned that to us. So Finally we changed all logos (trust us it was very hard in so many places, reviews etc. and we decided to open new chapter. You could read about it here. (we spend like a few months trying to unravel many things to be clear: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/912840/view/528750685224699129 ) ).

    In the game itself, the logo is waiting for an update (it is already updated on the PS5 version). The game is about Slavic culture. Unfortunately, so many Slavic (and also, as you know, Norse) symbols were adapted by the Nazis, that during production we overlooked that the kolovrat was also used by smaller groups in Russia. So basically, we are the opposite of any Nazi ideology, and our game is also the opposite. Basically, it is a love story medieval thriller. After you play it or read most of the reviews, you will see that it is a family/human story.

    2. WE DON’T KNOW WHY GOG USED SYMBOLS IN THEIR NEWSLETTER Really, we were also totally surprised when we saw the logo in the newsletter (the old logo) and the symbols next to the newsletter title. But we are in contact with GOG, and we believe this was like an AI recommendation to use those symbols, or something like that. We will ask GOG to just clarify things in the next newsletter.

    We didn’t use any SS or “Nazi swastika” in the game. Let’s wait for GOG’s clarification, but in our opinion, it was a bad AI recommendation. (Also, we think the first 2 symbols are just what someone writing the newsletter saw as a “Sun” symbol, as it doesn’t look like a black sun, etc. AI recommendations can be really stupid in the matter of symbols.)

    Best Regards

    Kinga and Kuba creators of The End of the Sun

  • ZeroHora@lemmy.mlEnglish
    40·
    2 days ago

    I mean you can’t expect anything better from a company from Poland to be honest.

  • KoboldKomrade [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    30·
    2 days ago

    Oh my god, the 3rd reply to the post about this on gog’s forums tried to post the title and couldn’t. So they either blocked some/all unicode (probably a smart/good idea), or already were blocking it (for being nazi or to head off people calling them out). Either way, extremely funny.

    To add to it, 4 days ago they released fucking hatred (the edgy spree shooter game with ties to reactionairies). https://www.gog.com/en/news/release_hatred_with_additions_to_the_gog_preservation_program (Title sounds like one of the “RELEASE THIS GAME PLS!!” things but also has a link to the store in there.)

    Really cool things going on at gog.

  • Demifriend [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    2 days ago

    I had gotten the email but without the symbols this morning so I thought this was a poor taste shit post at first, what the fuck

    • chortle_tortle@mander.xyzEnglish
      41·
      2 days ago

      From their comment on reddit.

      I also recognize that placing two such runes next to each other could create an unfortunate association with symbols used by the Nazi regime. This was noticed before distribution, and out of respect for local sensitivities, the material was not sent to the German community.

      To which someone replied,

      So you caught this as potentially troubling and sensitive before it was sent out to everyone, so you decided not to send it to just one country—Germany, where it’s more likely your company could be held legally liable?

      They knew it was nazi shit and didn’t send it to Germany because they could face legal trouble.