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CDProjectRed (GOG) appropriates popularity of #WontBeErased to make point about PC games

Raven117

Member
Haven't seen a discussion on this here on Gaf, but here we go. Please keep in mind this is a sensitive subject with real people involved. Im sure the moderation team will keep an eye out for lazy drive by posts no matter the position.

GOG, yesterday, tweeted: "Classic PC games #WontBeErased on our watch. Yeah, how's that for some use of hashtags?"

They later posted an apology
Yesterday, we posted a tweet containing a trending hashtag as a pun. The tweet was neither intended as a malicious attack, nor as a comment to the ongoing social debate.

GOG should focus only on games. We acknowledge that and we commit to it.

Amid President Donald Trump’s latest attack on transgender rights, digital distribution platform GOG.com is under fire for an insensitive remark from the company’s social media team. In its latest misstep, GOG used a trans rights hashtag to make an “edgy” joke about PC gaming, and the team’s apology leaves much to be desired from transgender users.
Controversy sparked on Monday after GOG used the hashtag #WontBeErased in a pun, claiming “Classic PC Games #WontBeErased on our watch.” The hashtag references the transgender community’s response to a new memo circulating in the Trump administration that would define trans peoples’ gender identities in relation to their sex assigned at birth, not their gender. It would also erase federal anti-discrimination protections for transgender men, women, and nonbinary people nationwide.
GOG wasn’t just aware of all of this, it seemed to pride itself on using an incredibly sensitive hashtag for a quick joke.

“Yeah, how’s that for some use of hashtags,” GOG quipped in a since-deleted tweet.
It didn’t take long for the gaming community to criticize GOG’s “joke” and deride it a

Link to the story
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...sh-again-after-insensitive-wontbeerased-tweet
https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/448273-gog-apology-transgender-tweet
https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/gog-transphobic-joke/

Keep in mind they also tweeted the below, back in August.

Did you just assume their gender?
https://kotaku.com/cyberpunk-2077-tweets-transphobic-joke-studio-apologiz-1828502562

So, what do you all think? Again, please be respectful and thoughtful in any posts.

Edit: To Moderation, while of course you are free to edit the title of thread as you see fit (and I agree with your assessment), I deliberately left it vague for the thread to mull over whether this was indeed the intention or not. The title now presupposes the conclusion and is taking a position. That was not my intent.
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Stop apologizing for jokes to people that don't buy/play games. GOG / CDPR is not going to suffer because of this.
 
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Incredibly tasteless. This social media dude it just attempting to get a rise out of people. Uncalled for.

Also, hardly an apology. But whatever.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
Anyone with half a brain could see that nothing was malicious in that tweet. Nothing was a target to trans folks. They didn't wish ill on them, they didn't insult them, they didn't threaten them. Nothing about it was transphobic. The only people who thought it was transphobic were infants who were trying to be offended, pushing their own idiocy on an innocent tweet.
 
Stop apologizing to people who get sand in their private parts over a dumb joke.

If you have the time to play games and waste time being outraged by a tweet, your suffering probably isn’t legit.

I came from poverty. We didn’t have time to care about shit like this. We didn’t have time to watch the OJ chase. Or cry about a Princess that died. We didn’t have the time to care about Clinton getting his knob polished. We were too busy trying to live and survive.

If you have time for things like this A) you don’t have real problems and are pretending or B) you may have real problems but you are to blame somewhat because instead of solving those problems, you worry about shit like this.

I will say that this company may want to rethink some of the tweets it puts out. But if you are raging at things like this, you should check you privilege and find actual issues to fight.
 

Vlaphor

Member
Part of me wants to chalk this up to the fact that they aren't from the US and don't quite know what's going on here, but doing it multiple times just looks real bad.
 
It was a stupid thing to do because everyone knew they would be forced to apologize.

At some point, stop complaining about the world and accept your own responsibility.
 
"GOG should focus only on games."

I love the use of referring to themselves in the third-person in such a derisive way - "Bad GOG. GOG should know better."

Fucking weird. This social positioning/moral posturing is killing me. Ironically I love reading these "non-news" threads.

Snowflakes, snowflakes everywhere.

Edit: Lyrics to The Offspring's Disclaimer:

So, if it sounds sarcastic, don't take it seriously.
If it sounds dangerous,
Do not try this at home or at all.
And if it offends you, just don't listen to it.
 
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JimmyRustler

Gold Member
The biggest irony in this is that if gaming media simply wouldn't write reports about this barely anyone would even know they wrote that...
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
not gonna lie, i've been watching the shitshow at Era, people losing their goddamn minds trying to out woke each other. funny to see people jump to being racists towards the Polish in their rush to shit on a joke that was already deleted.
 
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Mochilador

Member
I thought it was a funny joke but for some it was heavy.
But there is no need to go super saiyan about it.
 
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Dabaus

Banned
not gonna lie, i've been watching the shitshow at Era, people losing their goddamn minds trying to out woke each other. funny to see people jump to being racists towards the Polish in their rush to shit on a joke that was already deleted.

I shudder to think Developers use NPC Era as some sort of litmus test on how they develop their games story or gameplay mechanics'. Ill openly admit I love reading their "poliera" section to just for laughs. The group think there is something out of a George Orwell Novel on steroids. North Korea has more thought diversity than NPC ERA does.
 
I thought it was a funny joke but for some it was heavy.
But there is no need to go super saiyan about it.

For every issue there are nutjobs on the internet who will go super saiyan.

CDPR felt they needed to apologize, I think that says all we need to know about who went too far.
 
not gonna lie, i've been watching the shitshow at Era, people losing their goddamn minds trying to out woke each other. funny to see people jump to being racists towards the Polish in their rush to shit on a joke that was already deleted.
You can't be racist against a nationality. There are white Poles, black Poles, Asian Poles, etc. Sorry, the way 'racism' is misused these days irks me.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
ok cool, then change it to xenophobia. guess that makes it totally cool to do now since it's not technically racism. /s
 
ok cool, then change it to xenophobia. guess that makes it totally cool to do now since it's not technically racism. /s
For the love of god, please don't misconstrue my post. I was in no way, shape or form defending those crackpots over there. I wouldn't read that shithole if you paid me.
 

Nymphae

Banned
I don't know why companies bother to tweet anything other than ads, promos, contests, etc. Use it as a promotional tool, not a soapbox. How many times does this shit need to happen? Let your employees tweet on their own time about whatever they want to, from their own accounts.
 
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#Phonepunk#

Banned
For the love of god, please don't misconstrue my post. I was in no way, shape or form defending those crackpots over there. I wouldn't read that shithole if you paid me.

np, i should do better at thinking before i post =)

will be interesting to see if they do end up boycotting all discussion of the evil game made by a different company than the one posting these tweets
 

Solomeena

Banned
Another SJW hate brigade trying to censor and be the thought police, fuck them. Sounds just like Hitler and the Nazi's.
 
Anyone with half a brain could see that nothing was malicious in that tweet. Nothing was a target to trans folks. They didn't wish ill on them, they didn't insult them, they didn't threaten them. Nothing about it was transphobic. The only people who thought it was transphobic were infants who were trying to be offended, pushing their own idiocy on an innocent tweet.

Can't tell if sarcastic.
 

Geki-D

Banned
To be fair, it was a pretty tin eared use of the hashtag. I doubt they meant harm but this is an instance where GoG should have put a bit more thought into the reactions the tweet was going to get. It's pretty obvious it was going to make some people upset.
 
Yeah, first time could be an honest mistake (considering they deleted the tweet), second time it's a clear provocation. It would be interesting to know why they're doing it and if it's going to translate to sales.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
I'll just say that I glanced at ERA last night and randomly saw the thread they had on this. Those people are legitimately scary at this point. I think they could honestly work themselves up to the point of justifying violence over the tiniest difference of opinion. (I actually got banned for pointing this out to someone explicitly advocating for that)

The tweet is completely harmless. Its a dumb joke to just get GoG seen on a trending hashtag. Anyone with a shred of generosity can see that the tweet does not constitute an insult, or oppression, or anything of significance really. And what do you know, that's exactly what happened to them before for a completely harmless joke.

GoG just seems like normal people that aren't dangerously fanatic religious SJWs, so people are losing their minds. If you have the stomach for it, reading the ERA thread on it is actually scary. Some of those people have genuine issues and the fact that anyone can think that style of moderation is justified is honestly shocking.

As far as the gender issue, liberals have really fucked it up and left themselves wide open for a move like this. They bullied everyone into accepting unlimited gender identities without any science to back it up and now here is the backlash. I honestly still don't know where I stand on the issue. I just know that being bullied into accepting things that aren't real is wrong and completely fascistic. Everyone should have the same rights though regardless.
 
I've got to side with the "mob" there. The fact that for example as a white person you wouldn't give a shit about a racist or antisemitic joke, doesn't mean people who are the target of it will just cave into your aggressions, that's the game. Attack people under any form, be ready for a defense.

I'm not bothered by everything the US president does, mostly don't care, but this issue is grave and real enough, that the joke is actually tasteless and aggressive unlike their previous "did you assume their gender" joke which simply mocks an opinion.

The problem is that CPDR is based in of the world's most racist country, today and yesterday, Poland which is one of the rare and first western country that turns to extreme-right wing. Now if you're racist it's not a problem, but for CPDR it means their company will not hold off in the global market and especially not in the future.
 
I've got to side with the "mob" there. The fact that for example as a white person you wouldn't give a shit about a racist or antisemitic joke, doesn't mean people who are the target of it will just cave into your aggressions, that's the game. Attack people under any form, be ready for a defense.

I'm not bothered by everything the US president does, mostly don't care, but this issue is grave and real enough, that the joke is actually tasteless and aggressive unlike their previous "did you assume their gender" joke which simply mocks an opinion.

The problem is that CPDR is based in of the world's most racist country, today and yesterday, Poland which is one of the rare and first western country that turns to extreme-right wing. Now if you're racist it's not a problem, but for CPDR it means their company will not hold off in the global market and especially not in the future.
Oh grow the fuck up. Hit the reset button and join the mob of delusional idiots then.
 

Raven117

Member
I didn't want to bring up the other forum, but at well over 50 pages and if someone has curiosity of how some people view this issue, then it is worth the read. But do NOT post, you will be banned in seconds. You must bend a knee and pay homage to the appropriate level of outrage as dictated by the powers that be, or face the ban hammer.

There is also discussion of whether to "Deplatofrm" CDPR and not discuss them any more on that forum. So, there is that to discuss.
 

Fbh

Member
The meltdowns over a tweet are honestly ridiculous. This thread made me go check out the Era reaction and holy shit, like 70 pages!.
It's going to be hillarious going there in the future and seeing how many of the people calling for all devs to boycott gog and CD Project Red end up playing Cyberpunk.

Overreactions to tweets and comments by companies are a funny thing.
Companies like Nestle with a known and pretty factual history of doing bad things to actual people and seemingly holding no value for human life (specially in third world countries): No problem
A company Tweets an insensitive joke: Holy shit, boycott, I hope they die, I'm never buying from them again!!!

With that said, I just can't imagine why anyone who gets paid to run the social media account of a company would think that tweet won't generate a negative reaction
 
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Oh grow the fuck up. Hit the reset button and join the mob of delusional idiots then.

Well I would if was a PC, but I'd rather wait for you to be a racist in front of me when we have no choice anymore and you can't serve me that hypocrite "grow-up" on a matter that doesn't concern nor regard you.
 
Well I would if was a PC, but I'd rather wait for you to be a racist in front of me when we have no choice anymore and you can't serve me that hypocrite "grow-up" on a matter that doesn't concern nor regard you.
Calling an entire country racist makes you an ignorant bigot. And I will call you out on that bullshit.
 
Please explain to me in detail how the tweet was "transphobic".

The fact that they made light of the fact that they were borrowing this hashtag from another group clearly indicates that whoever wrote the tweet was:

- Aware of the political nature of the hashtag
- Knew it was going to ruffle feathers

At least they owned up to it, they didn't claim to be "centrists disillusioned by the modern left".
 

Hudo

Member
I envy the people who can get furious about a tweet on the internet. They must have a very relaxing life with no worries and/or commitments to have time for this.
 

ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
Making anything remotely trans* related into an untouchable third rail was one of the key elements that destroyed oldGAF, and I'm not at all surprised the people who migrated to an even more protective forum are losing their minds over a tweet.

EDIT:
Meanwhile REEEEEEEEEEEEEEsetera admins are doxxing CDPR employees on Twitter

Are they? If possible, I'd rather read into that in non-video form.
 
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