Holy hell, this does not look like an accident. This combination of runes does not just happen. Whoever did this at the company thought they could get away with it.
It sounds like they knew the most obvious one, from the first apology. Though they did leave that in anyway (emphasis added):
What was displayed in several devices as doppelrune is out of our control. ᛋ was displayed as ϟ on several devices (might display for you differently here as well just letting you know). We should pay more attention to checking it on a different systems and devices. 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.
"We noticed it was some nazi shit but we did it anyway, except in Germany where it's illegal." Pretty wild defense.
They only apologize when they get caught. Everything else is "fine".
Well I don't know. Their response overall is quite incoherent in places, but they mentioned somebody, presumably German, interfering twice now:
we didn’t port the feedback from our German QA to other languages
https://x.com/GOGcom/status/2062981104362242551
This was noticed before distribution, and out of respect for local sensitivities, the material was not sent to the German community.
https://old.reddit.com/r/gog/comments/1txmcyd/ts_gotta_be_racist_gog_explain/opxtour/
And yeah I can absolutely see a German translator/QA person just going, "No, I'm not sending out a fucking SS rune. That's a fucking crime." Because apparently it was only censored in the German language version of the newsletter, Germans with language set to English still received it with the runes. So that part, the "hey the German censor was the only one who caught this", that I can believe. And some PR person rephrasing this embarrassing state of affairs as "German QA" and "respect for local sensitivities" that I can believe too.
Beyond that, there is pretty deep lore on this already. The developer used an Indian sun wheel before being made aware of possible "connotations", and then apparently misinterpreted the term connotations, see here (same reddit thread as above, but different comment). Then the GoG rep saying in the reddit thread above the S-like runes were supposed to be Sowilō runes, which are indeed sun symbols, although not Slavic ones, which may comes in pairs, but not in the same orientation, and seem to render different depending on fonts. But the email seems to have used Greek Kappa, which may or may not render differently, looks like it doesn't. It's confusing, but plausible enough to have a difficult time disbelieving it outright.
But on the whole, those three/four symbols just don't come together by accident. Some person put those there on purpose and is trying to play it off as a mistake. I suspect the author of that first damage control message on reddit.
That's not even true. Am German, got the mail. (To a ".de" e-mail adress btw, so it's not like it would have been hard to filter.)
AFAIK, it was not sent to people signed up for the German language newsletter. Filtered via language, not location.
This doesn't even make sense when it's about symbols that are illegal in one country. Not all German speakers live in Germany, not all people in Germany use the German language version of things.
But also not everyone with a .de domain lives in Germany. You can't really accurately filter for this in a newsletter unless you know everyone's location. So they just used the language, thinking that would catch most German citizens.
There is also a "location" in my GOG profile, wnich is set to Germany.
Someone else further down mentioned that it was likely the translators that caught the issue which would make more sense as to why the German translation was held up while it was still sent out in other languages (regardless of user location).
The S rune is not the only issue. By combination of runes, I meant the whole thing. All of these runes have been used by Nazis and extensively so. While the rune used by the SS is the most well known, this is like a best-of of which runes Heinrich Himmler and modern Nazis are especially fond of.
Looking further into that other thread I see what you mean, it looks like the devs themselves realized the other icons (and even changed one for the game’s logo) but GOG just not have known that. I’ll have to update my reply, thank you!
It's worse to remind germans they are nazis than to blast nazi symbols at the rest of the world apparently.
An apology is meaningless.
Tell us how and why two koppa were placed together, knowing they rendered incorrectly and even if they didn’t would still look like double sig runes. There was nothing Slavic cultured about two of them next to each other and the excuses made so far are unacceptable lies, who made that decision and why?
Until this is properly explained, I am never using GOG again.
The high seas welcome another mariner. 🤘🏼
How many layers of people did this go through? Between their history of transphobia and now this, they are painting a pretty bad picture of themselves
I'm not aware of their history of transphobia, could you share an article talking about it?
Of course! https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/23/18015434/gog-twitter-wontbeerased-hashtag/
https://kotaku.com/cyberpunk-2077-tweets-transphobic-joke-studio-apologiz-1828502562
I included CD Projekt in there since GoG is owned by them
It's not the intent of your post and I know I'm on a bit of a tangent, but the middle article about the oversexualization in the ad doesn't feel transphobic to me as a trans person. Or like, it does, but it does in a way that it makes perfect sense for the world that the game takes place in.
There are lots of examples of commodification of people's bodies in game, so leaning into that with a trans person feels like a very real version of what a company might do in that universe.
Not trying to nitpick or anything, I just heard about this controversy waaaaaay after the fact and never got a chance to chime in anywhere with anyone.
No worries at all. To me it felt more like fetishization but that is a totally fair take.
The point is, the game portraits a terrible world. The game contains people killing each other, that doesn't mean the developers condone people killing each other in real life. The game contains megacorporations misusing images of trans people for advertising, that doesn't mean the developers condone that either.
I think it's usually well understood that something being in a work of media doesn't mean it's representative of the views of the authors, in fact it's very common for media to contain themes like violence and abuse, not because the author is condoning it, but because the author is building a dark world for their piece of fiction.
Apologia much? 🤷🏽
If you disagree, feel free to discuss, no need to be dismissive for no reason.
How is this a history of transphobia?
Link 1: They made a pun using a trending hashtag without checking what the hashtag meant. They apologized when it was explained to them. This is an example of cluelessness or laziness on the part of whoever was running the Twitter account, not of transphobia.
Link 2: In their video game, containing themes like murder, rape, torture, and the abuse of society by megacorporations, they included a megacorporation misusing an image of a trans person for advertising. When asked about it, they confirmed it's part of the evil fictional world that they have created, and obviously they don't condone it, just like they don't condone murder even though the game features a lot of murder. Is it transphobic to include themes of transphobia in a game, even though it's shown as a bad thing?
Link 3: They didn't like a fan's assumption that only men work for the company, and used the "Did you just assume their gender" meme. They apologized when they were told it can be offensive.
I don't see a single example here of them being transphobic on purpose. And speaking of Cyberpunk, it features a major trans character whose struggle you are supposed to emphatise with, so they clearly care about the community.
I agree they should be more careful about what their post, but I think there is a big difference between being transphobic, and accidentally posting something transphobic without meaning it 8 years ago and then apologizing for the mistake.
Lemmy and the twittosphere lose their hive-mind when the trans topics come up. What they don't understand is, when everything is outrageous, nothing is.
"Classic PC Games #WontBeErased on our watch. Yeah, how’s that for some use of hashtags."
The female figure in one of those advertisements very clearly has a penis. The ad is for a soft drink called ChroManticore that tastes of “16 flavours you’d love to mix.” The copy encourages you to “mix it up,” an apparent reference to the trans model in the poster.
“Did you just assume their gender,” the tweet said. The account was responding to a fan saying that they wanted more from the “guys” at Gamescom.
To me these seem much tamer than sending nazi symbols via email tbh
The second one is the opposite of transphobic
ok? It was not about which is a worse offense, it was about a history of being shit asses
Just wanted to make the info more readily available. Transphobia can get much worse than out of touch pr so what they precisely did is important context (at least to me)
Technically it isn’t anymore it’s owned by one of the founders, though he’s a chair at cdpr
Good to know!
I guess I'll have to buy my games from itch now sigh
Not as extensive as GOG but zoom platform does drm free as well.
I'll look into it, thanks
There was also a period where transphobic comments in their forums seemed to take longer for mods to delete but I can't find anyone talking about that.
Also of note, GOGs sister company, CD Project RED, makers of Cyberpunk 2077, have been criticized for their handling of Trans people and response to trans critics as well covered some here
I would bet my last donut that the screwup has something to do with AI generating at least part of their email content.
Doesn't matter if it was originally added by an LLM (AI doesn't exist) or not. They stated they knew what it looked like and that's why they didn't send it out in Germany. That makes them fully responsible and aware of the message they were sending
Sorry, I missed where I stated that it mattered.
Probably drafted by Grok
I havent received any newsletter from GOG addressing their fuck up. So all this x crap is, is PR noise to placate those people, who already know about it and are looking for it, not a sincere apology and change of way.
Sad to learn really, so no more money to them it seems.
checks email
Yup, I got this one too.
What...what the hell?
On further research, I had no idea CD Projekt Red sold GoG Games. CD Projekt sold GOG to its original co-founder, Michał Kiciński, in December 2025 for approximately $25.2 million. Did they go full Nazi after that or were they always suspect?
Either way, I'm downloading what I bought over the years and closing my account. No way I want to be anywhere near anything associated with Nazis.
Update: Downloaded my games, closed my account.
I'm sure this is a small mistake and not...oh Jesus Christ
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.