Glass Bottom Games’ founder has announced SkateBIRD will not be on GOG, after they pulled out of selling Chinese-blacklisted horror game Devotion.
For those unfamiliar, in February 2019 Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games were accused of placing hidden messages in their horror game Devotion, mocking the Chinese President Xi Jinping. As the game centers around a cult, others felt Devotion as a whole was a critique or mockery of the Chinese government, and its supporters in mainland China.
The game’s publisher, Indieevent, later had their business licence revoked by the Chinese government. In July 2019 the developer confirmed the game would not be returning to sale. The game was later added to the Harvard University library. Red Candle Games announced the game will have a limited physical release in June, purely within Taiwan.
Yesterday Red Candle Games announced they would be putting the game on GOG. However, GOG would later state the game was not coming to their platform “after receiving many messages from gamers” mere hours after the announcement.
After the announcement, GOG were openly condemned by many Twitter users, including some developers. One took it a step further, with Glass Bottom Games’ founder Megan Fox announcing SkateBIRD would not be coming to GOG, in a tweet mocking GOG’s own announcement.
Fox had also requested another Glass Bottom Games’ title, Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore A Fedora, be removed from GOG.
“Earlier today, it was assumed that the game SkateBIRD was coming to @GOGcom. After receiving one message from them that undercut a fellow indie dev, we have decided not to list our game in their store.”
[…] “You might see we have another game on there now. I’ve sent an email to start the process of them removing it. I wouldn’t advise buying it during the sale as a result, since no idea how they handle that.
That said, it’s an old game that sold near 0, so prob not an issue for ya
‘why drop them now?’ – because they reached my breaking point of put-up-with-shit. ‘didn’t they already do bad shit?’ – yes, and then they would fire that social media person and say oh hey we’ll do better, so I’d give em benefit of doubt etc. I’ve just run out of doubt benefit.
‘was SkateBIRD actually greenlit on GOG yet?’ – no, they’d gotten an early build, said hey submit when it done, and were planning to review it close to launch as they usually do. Given the game’s profile and our prior relationship, though, it was likely a shoo-in for acceptance.”
[…] “Also, I see people conflating this with Dadpunk game and – uh no I didn’t even fully realize that GOG was related to CDPR. This is purely because of GOG’s pattern of shit stirring. They’ve been a borderline bad actor for years, and keep doing stuff like ‘this’ then back pedaling.”
Fox also confirmed that while the game will be on Steam in 2021, it will not utilize Steam’s DRM. There will also be a DRM free version of the game on Itch.io.
In addition, Poppy Games have announced they are interested in bringing the game to consoles in the US, along with a physical PC release.
Image: Steam
