Well that’s a headline I never thought I’ll write. Several posts and comments on the GOG subreddit have noticed a promotional e-mail that contains some… interesting symbols, which I can confirm with my own e-mail. As can be seen from the screenshot below, an e-mail containing a discount code for the game The End of the Sun (nothing out of the ordinary so far) contains 4 symbols that resemble Nazi iconography.
Comments have gone off the rails.
Locking this down
Good Old Germany
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.
Zero explanation for why there were two of them, and the thing about Germany makes them look worse.
It’s also not even correct. I am in Germany, with a German (but English-language) GOG account and I received the email with those symbols. Someone should get fired over this.
But it’s not the same symbol despite being two of them.
Let’s not nazis hijack the letter S and fucking sun now shall we? This is so tiring.
As much as I would like to not let Nazis hijack certain things, the simple fact is they did, they have, and they continue to. If Nazi-ism were gone and a distant memory, which perhaps even a decade ago I might’ve believed we were nearly at, then we can start working on reclaiming what they have polluted and bringing back its true, full history.
But that has all changed, the masks are coming off and we are starting to see how far these white supremacists have metastasized and how much power they are beginning to take control of with their fascism. Now is not the time to begin trying to reclaim these symbols, precisely when they are actively using them as dogwhistles and trial balloons, actively spreading their vile ideology and starting to signal to and coordinate with each other to make their ever-so-predictable moves against humanity once again.
And they decided to remove them specifically for Germany because…?
Yo wtf that’s mens rea / admission of guilt
They just admitted they knew it was bad and were like “but it’s legal in the US so it’s fine to send it there” but ignore it’s about as bad as it gets for legal symbols.
It’s a rune and displays differently depending on where you are viewing it.
That author is one hell of a pearl clutcher.
It’s double runes of a different unicode character (they claim it is Ϟ rendering as ᛋ), they recognised the whole thing would appear to be Nazi and they deliberately did not send it to Germany where it is illegal.
reddit
opinion discarded
Idk, GOG even said they were aware it might “cause problems”. So why include them at all and risk the trouble? They even removes it from the German announcement. Like come on, thats obvious enough where you probably shouldn’t send it to the whole world if you won’t send it to the country the Nazis spawned in.
Nazi symbology is probably illegal in Germany.
Not probably, it is, that still doesn’t mean it makes sense to send it to the rest of the world. The Nazis were kinda a big deal that everyone knows about.
- It’s a literal hate symbol.
- You are defending a company using Nazi imagery.
- There was no reason for the inclusion of the Nazi hate symbol.
Oh boy! Look at you making assertions. Please fix this for us by boycotting GOG and telling all your friends at Starbucks.
Oh, explain how using the Schutzstaffel insignia is acceptable?
Like, if Starbucks put a swastika on their cups, and the symbol came out 45° rotated on some of them (as the third reich did), and they just decided not to ship those ones to Germany, it’d be pretty hard to defend.
Also they knew exactly what they were doing before sending it ACCORDING TO THEMSELVES. They even chose not to send the email to German users because of it
Why people cry so much about something like this? Yes, the Nazi’s did something horrible and I’m not here to tell the contrary, but why in the hell using those simbols offend so much?
Here a whole 30 mins and I have already had the pleasure of encountering a fascist
That’s exactly what I mean with people that cry about everything, I just ask and then they put words in your mouth that you never said
cry about everything
Who is crying?
Thank you for helping me pop my Lemmy block user cherry. You made it easy to give in.
Yup, it’s that classic fake outrage bullshit that permeates the cringiest corners of social media. They need to indulge in these performative contests to signal “superior” virtue over logical moderates who cooly observe that symbols on a screen are not intrinsically hateful & are objectively incapable of harm. People acting & realizing shitty ideologies are capable of harm. Stopping them is the furthest thing from denouncing a symbol.
They’re “fighting fascism” they claim. Are they, though? If objecting over symbols “stopped fascists”, no one’s ever seen it.
They’re claiming these symbols send messages of hate. What’s the “message of hate” here? These sun-related symbols (fitting the game’s sun & rune theme) are vague.
They’re stroking their justice boners over some unearned sense of accomplishment that they “fought the good fight”. Denouncing symbols is the least meaningful opposition or rational discourse: it doesn’t challenge shitty ideas or their adherents. It does absolutely nothing.
Irrational losers, however, don’t like critical thought. Discrediting their bullshit sense of superiority & accomplishment (at doing nothing meaningful despite feeling like they are) offends them.
- It’s a literal hate symbol.
- You are defending a company using Nazi imagery.
- There was no reason for the inclusion of the Nazi hate symbol.
I was asking why people cry about that, not defending it
I know right? It was just an innocent nod to Nazis.
I can’t even heil myself in public anymore, people are just so sensitive and overly political.
I guess I touched a nerve with that question? I guess that I should open a PR to Lemmy so they can ban people who type (or even ask) about those scary symbols?
Try reading a book instead of asking strangers online if you actually care to learn something (I get the feeling that you do not)
You honestly seem more bothered by the offense people take, however much you try to pass it off as surprise. Clearly you feel threatened by criticism of nazis so what’s that about?
They can’t help but self report
Yes, Hitler was so devastated he shot himself in the head.
You can disapprove of something and not “cry” about it. Do you cry every time you dislike something?
You are asking why people having a problem with nazi symbols being used in a time when we literally have neo nazis gaining power and you are doing it in a way that intimates having a problem with nazi symbols being used is mockworthy.
Probably because people that still think like Nazis continue to use these symbols for sending messages of hate.
We don’t think it; we know it.
I think you didn’t parse that comment right.
Shut up Elon. Nazis always deserve a beating.
Because Nazi dog whistles are a problem. Nazism didn’t end in 1945.
First of all I love GOG, I love their mission, and I have stood by them since the beginning.
That being said, why the living fuck did they put 2 of the last symbol? What did that represent!?
Did you also stand by them when they started using AI images in the store? Or when they started that patrons thing where they just ask you to donate to a for-profit store?
GOG has been kind of weird lately, and I can’t say I like what I’ve been seeing.
Aw maaan. I saw some of these and managed to overlook them separately, but taken together it’s not looking great. That sucks, I liked GOG.
The second yes, the first no. I can see a patreon type thing for game preservation being a good thing so long as they maintain a paper trail. You’re not wrong though.
The two together at the end is the ss lightning bolt. Hitlers gestapo.
A nitpick but the Gestapo were just a part of the SS.
The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and Waffen-SS (Armed SS). The Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of the combat units of the SS, with a sworn allegiance to Hitler. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; “Death’s Head Units”[2]), ran the concentration camps and extermination camps. Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organisations. They were tasked with detecting actual or potential enemies of Nazi Germany, neutralizing the opposition, policing the German people for their commitment to Nazi ideology and providing domestic and foreign intelligence.
Yeah, I get that. But my point is, if they say it’s not supposed to have been that, when that’s what everyone else sees, what were they trying to represent? Like, ok, Nordic runes are touchy because of the nazis, but there are plenty of reasons to use them. But using that rune twice? Why? Why only that rune? How can you say you didn’t mean that? What else could you have been trying to represent?
The twin suns of tatooine?
to me it’s pretty clear that it was intentional. like ffs, they explicitly chose to send the email with that title everywhere except germany because it’s illegal to have nazi symbolism there. so obviously they knew! they realized what this came across as!
idk if it’s an edgy representative, and now they’re defending that rep or something (or maybe the rep is the one writing the shitty non-apologies)… but yea, i’m downloading all my offline installers and if they don’t have a real apology and commitment to not fucking do this again then my account is gone.
fuck gog. the ai shit was bad enough, this is fucking unacceptable. i’d rather put up with steam’s drm than give money to neonazis.
As an Easterner, I fully agree with that highlighted comment from Polish dude - the symbol you see in the title has nothing to do with Nazis, it is cultural heritage that we still use around.
For us it’s different, but idea is the same - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugunskrusts
Better don’t go to India
Let me remind you that this is Polish game and GoG is owned by a Polish company.
You still use them around because you have fucking nazis going around. Poland is the ONLY country REQUESTING the military base from the Burger Reich. Makes you think eh, what would they possibly have in common? 🤔🤔🤔
Trust me when I say this - many of the folks don’t even really understand Nazis. The symbols have nothing to do with them, it’s deeply enriched in our cultural heritage way before Nazis stole the symbols. One of the most respectable/known things from history in my country is “Order of Lāčplēsis”. Look it up, notice the dates, and then look up when Latvia was founded. The people who held the title were also involved in fighting against Nazis.
This is all verifiable online. Sometimes the East European history and culture is not what you can assume from GoG emails. We very much hate nazis as they literally brought us into wars and occupations, just like we can assume Poles are not very happy about Nazis attacking them and wrecking their country for decades.
You know what’s really annoying? That we essentially get hated for our cultural heritage because the baddies stole a symbol
Let me remind you that Nazis saw slavs as subhumans, next in line after Jews. Poles and Latvians are slavs
I just want to let you know that on my app you are labelled as Zionist (the coincidence in life eh), as such I have no respect for you or your opinions. With your respectable/known orders and history I wipe my ass and what GOG put was Nazi symbology. :)
Huh? I’m like at the opposite world of Israel and you can probably scan my comments for that stuff, doubt you’ll find me showing much support for a genocide.
EDIT: Actually, read my profile bio. It might have been due to questioning the numbers from early Lemmy days, but that’s pretty much history and in no way makes me a zionist, but someone who critically sees information that’s hard to believe and I usually need more proof than a reddit/lemmy comment.
It took me literally 2 minutes. Ah yes, you are a critical inspector of facts, yes. Would you like me to show you israeli scum RAPING inmates and civilians defending them? Or kids sniped? Or burned? Or Israeli stats on the war? Or hospitals/refugee camps/schools being bombs with thermobaric bombs?
let me know mr. “you don’t know what Nazi is”.
The Schutzstaffel is purely a Nazi symbol.
There was no reason to use 2 of those runes together, especially when not using it in German mailers because they thought it would violate hate speech laws.
What about the ss runes? Got a rationalization for that?
Is this a case of AI ?
No. They admitted they were aware that the symbols might render in this way on some systems and they went ahead with it anyway.
I have always loved GOG and what they do but this shit is unacceptable. I thought it was a mistake at first, just something overlooked but they said they didn’t send it to German users because of the implications so what the fuck
They really need to apologize for this. I go out of my way to tell everyone who games on PC about GOG man…
“Slavic Adventure”
Maybe support for Ukraine lol. Zelensky just honored Andrey Melnik, a twentieth-century Ukrainian fascist leader and Nazi collaborator who fought with the Nazi’s against the Red Army (NYTimes)
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: TrollStop trolling us, NYT!
Oh look an ml account repeating the Ukraine nazi Russian propaganda talking point. How surprising.
Til the new York times is now Russian propaganda…
Utterly aside from the general content of this thread.
I know nothing of the pieces printed or their leanings, nor is it relevant for the purposes of this response.
That argument is the weakest of sauces, drizzled over a disappointing bad-faith steak.
A single article doesn’t define a whole paper (nor was that claimed).
A papers’ reputation doesn’t give them a free pass for printing something outside of their normal editorial quality control.
Argue the actual claims, this bad faith deflection bullshit is fooling no-one.
Oh look an ml account repeating the Ukraine nazi Russian propaganda talking point. How surprising.
When this is the claim being replied to, forgive me and anyone else from not giving it any graces. Especially when it is starting with as you say
That argument is the weakest of sauces, drizzled over a disappointing bad-faith steak.
Especially when a user is literally calling what the leader of Ukraine did last week Russian propaganda.
They came in hot, you go at it, zero problems with that from me.
All I meant is that you should go at it with actual arguments.
Even if they are objectively incorrect, responding with deflection and fallacy makes your position look weak, like you don’t have an actual point.
My point is there isn’t an argument to be made. We’re in a games thread about how gog is out downplaying nazi symbols just as a Ukrainian nazi collaborator got state honors and that is called Russian propaganda.
How are we in a place where nazis aren’t ostracized
Given that they were nazi propaganda in 1938 and creating the October 7 mass rape narrative… it’s not that much of a stretch.
“You don’t understand, they call us Nazi so we have to do this to prove them wrong!! Why are you doing this to us!!!”
THAT.
IS.
WHY.
I.
PIRATE!
You pirate because GOG made a fuck-up in its marketing comms?
The fuck-up in questionl letting nazis post their newsletters and then retconning excuses instead of firing said nazi
So nobody here wants to actually read the article where it was very clearly explained that this was a rendering error of a different symbol on some devices?
Y’all just really, really wanna be mad, huh?
They didn’t even use the rune though. They didn’t use the sowilo rune ᛋ but the koppa symbol ϟ because it looks more like the sig rune. If they actually meant to use the sowilo rune they would have and also why make a doppelrune? This is nazi shit.
The Schutzstaffel is purely a Nazi symbol.
There was no reason to use 2 of those runes together, especially when not using it in German mailers because they thought it would violate hate speech laws.
Either you are trying to gaslight people into thinking that ᛋᛋ is not a symbol of hate and genocide, or you are extremely ignorant.
No, I’m just capable of reading an article and understanding an explanation, unlike you and most other people in the thread, apparently.
Tell me then, why would they not show those symbols to Germans?
Did you read the article? It’s not Schutzstaffel.
Tell me then, why would they use 2 side by side. And why not show those symbols to Germans?
This seems like just poor planning rather than signaling. Let be real here. What is GOG or the devs to gain from this, it’s silly.
We all did, we also read the other messages and saw through the flimsy excuse provided.
Please do tell us why putting two Greek Koppa together was necessary, and how it relates to Polish cultural history. Why they realised that it appeared Nazi related, and instead of simply not doing it decided to only not do it in Germany.
Y’ou just really, really wanna downplay this, huh?
Lol, no, I’m just here to laugh at everyone malding about what is very clearly an innocent mistake.
Seriously, this is Tankie Triad levels of conspiracism, y’all.
If it’s just a mistake, then why did they only remove the symbol in the email sent to German customers, where it could get them into legal trouble?
Funny hill to die on
Funny hill to make a mountain out of
As long as the nazi’s dead
Dont worry, when we let Nazis take symbols they’ll eventually accumulate them all and we’ll have none left to use.
I think we should take them back—just like with 👌
Neither the “Doppelrune” (Doublerune) nor the “Siegrune/Sig-Rune” (Victory rune) are historic runes and were created 1929 by Walther Heck. The “Siegrune” itself wasn’t even inspired by the germanic “sowilo” rune (ᛋ), Walther Heck himself stated, that he created it, as he disliked the soft form of the “S” in the latin alphabet and wanted to provide an alternative to the “Fraktur” style that was commonly used in germany at that time.
This ᛋ is “sowilo/sigel/sol”, the germanic rune for sun
This ϟ is the “Siegrune”, created 1929 by Walther Heck as an alternative to the letter “S” and was used by the Nazis
This ϟϟ is the “Doppelrune”, also a creation by Walther Heck and used as a symbol for the SS
I did not know this, i assumed it was stolen like the swastika and others.
This honestly makes GOGs fuckup even more egregious.Thanks for educating us. I didn’t know this, and I appreciate you recommenting this multiple times to dispell any plausible justifications.
Wow… I really don’t buy those excuses…
They literally admit to seeing the problem before distribution, but instead of just deleting them from the email, they decide to just not include the place where it would get them into the most legal trouble instead?
Uh… No… That’s not an accident anymore. There’s no oopsie there.
Then they go and double down on reddit by giving the excuse that the symbol has been around way longer than it’s modern historical use, so we shouldn’t stop using it because someone corrupted it?
No, that’s not how it works.
Things get ruined and they take on new meanings, that includes words and symbols. You don’t just get to decide that you’re going to take back the symbol of some of the worst evil mankind has known just because it had another meaning before that and then expect everyone to be like, “Oh, alright…” It has a new meaning now. One that everyone recognizes… A meaning that it is blatantly apparent they were aware of beforehand and decided to use anyway.
Anyone buying that bullshit excuse is an idiot.
Fuck GoG.
Some people still keep the old meaninga going.
The west hates the Swastika for obvious reasons, but whenever I go to an Indian store there are swastika brand products because it still has its old meaning to Indians.
First time I went to an Indian coworkers house I stopped dead in my tracks when I approached their door, it was a Hindu special time and they had a giant swatika on the door.
I’ll give you that, and the swastika and manji came to mind. I’d originally included in my post the suggestion about going and putting up swastikas and was like, “wait… That’s still a thing.”
I get that it’s a Norse rune and I recognize the history and heritage in the same way, but in that case maybe just one ᛋ would have sufficed. However, considering someone thought enough to say, “Hey, this is going to be problem in Germany.” it would have hurt literally no one to just say, “maybe we just shouldn’t to it at all.” Deleted. Literally no controversy.
Instead… here we are.
The “Hey this might be a problem” is definetly a problem
Ok but is this an indian game or using a swastika?
I wasn’t responding to the game post, but the posters comment about symbol meanings. If you read our Congo further you’d see
The ss lightning strike “rune” was literally invented less than a hundred years ago. It’s got fuck all to do with the hakenkreuz corruption of the swastika
One day I wish we as a collective humanity can reclaim these symbols. Growing up in a Chinese household. I’ve know the manji as symbol associated with the Buddha, not as a symbol of hate and oppression.
Neither the “Doppelrune” (Doublerune) nor the “Siegrune/Sig-Rune” (Victory rune) are historic runes and were created 1929 by Walther Heck. The “Siegrune” itself wasn’t even inspired by the germanic “sowilo” rune (ᛋ), Walther Heck himself stated, that he created it, as he disliked the soft form of the “S” in the latin alphabet and wanted to provide an alternative to the “Fraktur” style that was commonly used in germany at that time.
This ᛋ is “sowilo/sigel/sol”, the germanic rune for sun
This ϟ is the “Siegrune”, created 1929 by Walther Heck as an alternative to the letter “S” and was used by the Nazis
This ϟϟ is the “Doppelrune”, also a creation by Walther Heck and used as a symbol for the SS
Gotcha. Nothing historical about that specific symbol. Never meant as a symbol of fortunate or goodness. Just some Heck dude who thought an angular S was cool
