The email in the comments

    • lime!@feddit.nu
      100·
      12 days ago

      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.

      • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        159·
        12 days ago

        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.

        • Sturgist@lemmy.ca
          82·
          12 days ago

          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.

        • hikaru755@lemmy.world
          23·
          11 days ago

          they specifically excluded those symbols from the email they sent to German accounts

          And even that they fucked up, because it seems like they just removed them from the German language version of the email. German accounts set to English (like mine) got the symbols like everyone else.

        • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
          5·
          12 days ago

          This is a protocol, you can’t memorize the reason behind every protocol you can only incorporate it into routine otherwise you would have to memorize a set of encyclopedias that shifts like aand on a desert.

          • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
            8·
            11 days ago

            What do you mean by protocol? I mean I understand your analogy, but not what protocol is an analogy for.

                • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  11 days ago

                  protocol isn’t an analogy. it’s jargon.

                  if you’re doing the “i’m pretending to be stupid” thing, referring to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or whatever that bullshit was called, we don’t have to cede all of language to nazis just because they speak.

      • VitoRobles@lemmy.todayEnglish
        85·
        12 days ago

        My favorite part was that GoG was told they cannot send this email in Germany because it would break the Nazi rule so they purposely get blocked their emails to getting to Germany.

        In other words, they knew.

      • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
        25·
        12 days ago

        Developers: you can’t use unused Unicode to represent photos, such a simple string of Data could be interpreted an infinite different ways If there isn’t unity.

        Marketing team: bah humbug, what’s the worst thing that could happen…

          • skoell13@lemmy.zip
            3·
            11 days ago

            Living in Germany woth German account but somehow English newsletters I also got the email.

      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        93·
        12 days ago

        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.

          • DarkSirrush@piefed.caEnglish
            17·
            12 days ago

            The devs covered that, they were not aware of any dogwhistles with the symbols they used during development, and once they were made aware of said dogwhistles, they spent the time to remove them from the game as thoroughly as possible

        • antonim@lemmy.world
          13·
          12 days ago

          As far as I understand it, those are pretty random runes, not specifically Slavic at all.

          Not like specifically Slavic runes exist anyway.

        • VitoRobles@lemmy.todayEnglish
          3·
          11 days ago

          It’s so crazy that the dev team even went into damage control to point out that it was not them.

          That Slavic team probably feeling like crap today because of something GoG did.

      • fiat_lux@lemmy.zip
        47·
        12 days ago

        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

      • M137@lemmy.today
        4·
        12 days ago

        “those emojis”

        They’re not emojis, at all. Emojis are pictures with a very specific and limited set. They’re ascii characters.
        You calling them emojis is “grandma calling your Xbox a “Nintendo Station”” level dumb.

        • VeryFrugal@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          41·
          12 days ago

          Those aren’t standard ASCII characters. They are Unicode. They are closer to emojis than anything else.

          Before you try to lecture anyone you might want to spend more than 10 seconds on wikipedia next time.

        • binux@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          24·
          12 days ago

          There’s a multitude of ways to correct someone without coming off as a pedantic prick in the process

          • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            9·
            12 days ago

            It does make it less funny when someone tries to politely correct and is wrong vs belligerently doing so with inaccurate information though.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
          5·
          11 days ago

          You really didn’t have to add dumb at the end there. We all make mistakes, and emoji can also be interpreted and implemented in pretty different ways

  • blindbunny@lemmy.mlEnglish
    115·
    12 days ago

    Gaben, “we aren’t a monopoly there’s plenty of other publishers to buy from”

    GOG

  • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
    68·
    11 days ago

    People defending this as “those are lighning bolts, not everyone knows it’s nazi imagery” are american, right?

    Like, everyone in Europe knows this is strictly and unmistakably nazi imagery, especially in Poland. There is no wiggle room for not knowing; that’s not even an excuse GOG themselves are trying to make, because if they tried to use that excuse then literally no one with the ability to read it in Europe would be uneducated enough to fall for it.

    • red_sock@lemmy.ml
      30·
      11 days ago

      People defending this as “those are lighning bolts, not everyone knows it’s nazi imagery” are american, right?

      Nah, they know what they are. They’re trying to a) downplay the symbol’s significance and normalize displaying it and b) get a “snowflake got triggered by lightning bolts” own out of it.

      • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
        6·
        11 days ago

        I’m sure there are some fash doing this, but a lot of comments here seem extremely naive and forgiving. And they come from lib instances, which I have grievances with, just not regarding dogwhistling & normalizing fascism (unless it comes out of UA…)

    • HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub
      3·
      11 days ago

      It was used in Poland as a symbol of feminism when women protested against criminalization of abortion.

      This is why it became nazi imagery, declared and sanctioned by polish right-wing government because they needed an excuse to stop the movement.

      You from america, friend?

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
    62·
    11 days ago

    This is the top of the email:

    This is the typeset of the game they’re promoting:

    This looks like a monumentally stupid fuckup. Never attribute to malice that what can be easily attributed to stupidity, incompetence, or negligence.

    • HereIAm@lemmy.world
      55·
      11 days ago

      They knew the sig “runes” were problematic before sending out the email, as they said they removed them for their German customers, but then kept it for everyone else. They knew, but decided to keep of in anyway.

      • reksas@sopuli.xyz
        8·
        11 days ago

        ffs, why must everything good turn out to be shit. well, gog hasnt been THAT good, but it has been nice extra thing. knowing companies cant do anything without having at least 6 meetings about it, there is no way this went unnoticed by people there, so i rule out rogue actor doing this.

    • Herr_S_aus_H@lemmy.zip
      45·
      11 days ago

      I’m sorry, not with the fucking double sig rune. You can’t be that brain dead to not see and know it is the symbol of the fucking SS and then even try to dance around German laws against the usage of NS-symbols and even fuck that up.

  • PapstJL4U@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    12 days ago

    This is really the whole incident is more than the sum of it’s parts stuff, but in a negative way.

  • shiftymccool@piefed.caEnglish
    30·
    12 days ago

    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

    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
      88·
      12 days ago

      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.

      • lath@lemmy.world
        10·
        12 days ago

        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.

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
          41·
          12 days ago

          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.

          • lath@lemmy.world
            2·
            12 days ago

            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.

            • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
              18·
              12 days ago

              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.

                • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
                  3·
                  11 days ago

                  To their credit not recently, but it’s all stuff similar to this nazi email:

                  https://dailydot.com/parsec/gog-transphobic-joke

                  deeply tasteless but believably just really dumb mistakes, until they come in and clarify that that they knew what they were doing the whole time.

                  Even then it’s not unforgivable it’s just… really stupid and tone deaf. But the examples of them being really stupid and tone deaf keep piling up and it’s getting harder to overlook.

              • lath@lemmy.world
                1·
                11 days ago

                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.

                But in a way, we kinda have to. I mean, are the nazis today the same as the nazis which started this movement or are they a separate entity and should be treated as such? Are all the nazi groups today are their own inventions and should they be granted the so-called ‘honour’ of having invented their particular brand of ‘doppelnazism’? Or should we reserve that for when one particular branch starts calling itself something else and only looks to have been inspired by nazism, but is something else entirely?

                Yeah, history is a continuous chain reaction. And the problem with fixating on specific points as the start of something has the disadvantages of ignoring everything which lead up to it and disagreeing on which point to put an end to it.

                With your point of view, nazism ended with the second world war and what we suffer now is something different. A new invention as you say.

                With my point of view, the dude didn’t invent shit and just stole what was already there and now we’re dealing with more of the same, the major difference being there’s no new brand of terror to set them apart visibly.

                • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
                  5·
                  11 days ago

                  But in a way, we kinda have to.

                  Uh, no? No we don’t? I’ve already expressed an utter lack of interest in arguing about this with you - this hasn’t changed. And please stop trying to force acceptance of your position onto me, this is the second time you’ve tried that and I’m still not going for it.

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
          28·
          12 days ago

          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)

          • Jiggle_Physics@quokk.auEnglish
            7·
            12 days ago

            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.

          • PineRune@lemmy.world
            5·
            12 days ago

            I’m not disagreeing with that, but to say the Nazi shite invented runes is wrong. I thought it was pretty well known that the Nazis appropriated many of their symbols from historical findings.

            • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
              10·
              12 days ago

              Sorry, sincere question: do you not see it’s the same thing? They didn’t invent a squiggly line - they invented the concept which is represented as the specific angles of those squiggly lines. He didn’t invent the jolly roger, he invented the totenkopf.

              edit: oi stop downvoting them they’re not wrong they’re just slightly misunderstanding my original statement.

              • PineRune@lemmy.world
                3·
                11 days ago

                No I understand that. The S rune on its own has its place in cultural history with all the other Runes, while putting two of them next to each other can only be seen as a Nazi symbol, much like the Swastika. In the modern practice of Heathenry and Paganism (which I practice) it is a very important distinction because the Nazis appropriated so much from European history for their symbolism. For example, the Swastika is the symbol for the Sunwheel, but I outright refuse to use it for anything because fuck Nazis. You can find it in ancient Buddhist temples that long predate Nazi Germany, and it has its own separate meaning for them, but for 99% of people it screams Nazi.

                Another lesser known symbol appropriated by Nazis is the “Winged Othala” symbol. The regular Othala Rune is one thing, but adding those little “Wings” on the bottom makes it 100% a Nazi symbol.

                I guess one of the points I’m trying to make is to know what is and isn’t some Nazi bs, and that some of those symbols are irredeemable after such strong Nazi usage, but others are just simply mistaken for Nazi symbols when they aren’t. I specifically avoid using anything in my religious practice that has Nazi association, and am ready to explain anything else that people might mistake otherwise.

        • LurkingLuddite@piefed.socialEnglish
          12·
          12 days ago

          2nd to 8th centuries… so it’s been out of fashion for over a thousand years, before a certain group decided to ‘popularize’ it again. Hmmmm…

        • BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world
          4·
          11 days ago

          Edit: dang are people getting upset over a fact check?

          They’re used because you’re defending the Nazis!

            • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
              5·
              11 days ago

              It’s because the topic is about Nazis and the usage iconography that may or may not be associated with Nazis.

              I’m not neurotypical myself so I get missing some nuance, but you can’t be neutral when it comes to Nazis, unless you’re actually OK with Nazis getting cozy in our spaces.

              You basically have to say fuck Nazis in every comment. Fuck Nazis!

              This could all be fun theory history lessons if we didn’t have literal Nazis running around. But that’s not the world we live in, sadly.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      13·
      12 days ago

      Culture is always evolving. Some words and symbols have had different meaning in the past than they do now. With context it can be fine to use them without association with the stronger cultural associations. If I see a swastika on a Buddhist temple, I’m not going to assume the Buddhists are Nazis. But if I see a symbol or word without context I’m going to assume the strongest association to that symbol in my culture. Just how culture works.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
          2·
          11 days ago

          “Slavic adventure” doesn’t give enough context to consider it not to be a white power kind of thing.

          If they were runes within the game it’s fine since you’d know from playing the game it isn’t about Nazi type shit. But the subject line of an email that just says “slavic adventure” followed by the SS symbols isn’t really enough.

    • Mwa@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      2·
      11 days ago

      i mean a word/symbol can be normal in the past for example and then turned racist,etc and vice versa. (and even mixed like the swastika)
      for example “queer” was a Lgbtq Slur but it was (mostly) turned normal.

  • kamen@lemmy.world
    24·
    11 days ago

    “Found my grandpa’s helmet. He must’ve been an electrician or something.”

  • stickly@lemmy.world
    22·
    11 days ago

    People really tearing GoG to shreds here but I don’t really understand why. I’m not a GoG user/stan so I don’t have a dog in this race, but this doesn’t (to me) seem to follow any pattern of malicious behavior.

    • To my knowledge they haven’t had recurring big controversies of this kind that show systemic cultural issues. Their Wikipedia page has a “Controversies” section with 3 events, including this one, for a total of 9 sentences.
    • Even if it was sent maliciously and intentionally, if they apologize and it doesn’t happen again I’m not going to get bent out of shape. These email campaigns are run by peons low on the totem pole and hardly get any thorough review.
    • The SS symbol is relatively niche and bland (though I concede this differs by country). To my knowledge it’s not the most common dogwhistle or exceedingly controversial. I’ve often seen people gaff into it when trying to punch up text with lighting bolts ⚡. It’s not exactly on the same tier as the death’s head => concentration camp connection.
    • Building on the above and knowing that GoG uses ai, its plausible that it could be accidental
      • An intern gets some copy, runs the header through Ai like he usually does because emojis in headers perform way better.
      • The LLM looking for “runes” has a strong bias for pairs of the symbol; probably nobody writes Elder Futhark runes, and especially that one, outside of the SS context.
      • Even if the intern knows the symbol, not all systems render it in an obvious way.
      • The email service automatically filters it from German emails due to stricter laws on Nazi symbols.

    I’m not saying people can’t choose to believe it was malicious or that it’s impossible for GoG to have a rotten company culture. But I’m confused at the level of vitriol. You’d think we were talking about tobacco or oil companies with an established history of killing puppies.

    • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
      31·
      11 days ago

      They ran the ss symbol - except for the campaign in Germany where nazi symbolism is illegal - so they knew what it was and ran it anyway

      People responded to this going “hey dude wtf” and the official response has been…not smart

      And now it is blowing up

    • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
      26·
      11 days ago

      The SS symbol is not a dogwhistle. Dogwhistles are meant to be covert and unassuming to anyone except those within the neofascist subculture, like 1488 and triple parenthesis.

      Unlike those dogwhistles, meant only to be understood by an ingroup, the SS lighning bolts are as explicit as a swastika. I would go even as far as to say that they are more egregious than a swastika, as swastikas have cultural signification in some countries that might muddy the waters when interpreting the symbol alone. The SS bolts have no such excuse.

      Also it wasn’t an automatic filter on german emails, it was a filter on german speakers. German emails configured with english as their language did receive the email, according to comments here.

      There is no benefit of the doubt to be allowed here. If they don’t have an extremely solid explanation (and LLMs aren’t that, they know how to recognize actual dogwhistles, they wouldn’t output actual 1940s nazis imagery so famous & standard, unless instructed to), then either someone needs to be fired, or we as the public need to understand that there is complacency for actual nazism within this company.

      Again, this isn’t some little dogwhistle people might be confused about. This is standard 1940s nazi imagery, on the same level of significance as the swastika. I knew this as a child in the 2000s, as a kid who never paid attention in class and found history to be the most boring topic.

    • lad@programming.devEnglish
      17·
      11 days ago

      One of the main issues with all that is that there was a review, and they didn’t sent it to Germany because of that review. So no, it was known, it is not a niche dog whistle, and I for one am not blaming the intern (if any) who did it, but rather the moderator who allowed the letter to go

      • stickly@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 days ago

        Yeah the final responsibility is entirely on whoever owns the email campaign/process. Having read their response to the community, it was more tone deaf and confusing than just delaying a statement or making a more focused one.

        At the end of the day they did stop the email mid send-out and are allegedly doing a review, which is the most you could ask of the higher ups. I’ve been through similar fires (though not Nazi or PR related) at some companies, figuring out exactly who said what and when can be very tricky. They probably don’t yet know how strong the feedback was, when it was given or who might be lying to save their job.

        Immediately putting out specifics like “we didn’t port the feedback” is a terrible idea. The public has even less context, not knowing how siloed the review process is or if logistics played a factor (German review came last, reviewer was in a different timezone, etc…).

        Whole process has been bungled all around.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
      14·
      11 days ago

      I much prefer the gog approach as a video game platform in a huge way. I would like to see this approach of selling games win.

      But they fucked up so massively here… Accidental or not, the iconography of the twin lightning bolts in an international context is so clear.

      They need to make their apology so loud and so clear, that any little nazlets thinking this is a sign from someone on gog staff, instead realize that there is no safe space for their hatred there.

      You cannot be ambivalent to maybe being associated with Nazis in the minds of some people. That’s how you get Nazis.

    • VitoRobles@lemmy.todayEnglish
      5·
      11 days ago

      Even if it was sent maliciously and intentionally, if they apologize and it doesn’t happen again I’m not going to get bent out of shape. These email campaigns are run by peons low on the totem pole and hardly get any thorough review.

      It is not run by peons. Email marketing is a major source of revenue for companies. It’s one of the main pillars of communication that’s directly to actual engaged customers.

      At my job, the ad copywriters, the PR team and the email marketers control all messaging of the brand. Everyone else (the website content team, the social media team, etc) goes to them for validation and content checks. It’s a big deal.

    • khaleer@sopuli.xyz
      5·
      11 days ago

      I don’t get all this noise too, being nazi is finally cool again! Those woke lefties want to break all good things again…

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      5·
      11 days ago

      I don’t think it was malicious but it’s still a big gaffe, especially coming from Poland, of all countries.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
      1·
      11 days ago

      I think it was just someone using that symbol thinking it was an innocuous Nazi reference, not understanding that it holds nearly as much significance as the Swastika itself to some people.

      PR Firms and marketing departments aren’t especially bright, so they need to understand that there has been a tightening of perception on that front, and ANY Nazi imagery is considered inappropriate for marketing purposes.

  • Mwa@thelemmy.clubEnglish
    18·
    12 days ago

    Ofc GOG became bad after They started requiring devs to use AI tools for the GOG Galaxy client.