CD Projekt hasn’t exactly had the greatest week. The company released the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077, which has, unfortunately, put them in some hot water with the fan base. Despite this, they were able to recoup the developmental costs within very short time, making the game an international success. Now CD Projekt’s other internal division, the one that runs GOG, is also on the hot seat with fans. Red Candle Games initially announced that the horror title Devotion would be coming to its platform, only to renege on that deal within a few hours and announce that the game would not be listed on GOG anymore.
For those who don’t know, Red Candle Games’ Devotion has been at the center of some controversy since last year. The most jarring aspect of this situation was when players discovered some in-game content that referred to Xi Jinping, the President of China, as the cartoon bear Winnie-the-Pooh with the word moron next to it. This of course references the internet meme which compares Xi to the honey-eating bear, something that Xi and the people of China are none too pleased with. This generated so much controversy for the title that it was pulled from Steam just few days after launching. This was even more ironic as the game topped Steam’s Global Selling list.
Red Candle Games has been struggling to find a home for their IP since then, and the studio scrambled to remove the content that gave it so much scrutiny as well as apologizing. When CD Projekt Red initially announced that the game would be coming to GOG, the fans of the original release were overjoyed and looked forward to playing it once again. As we already know, this will not be the case, as looks like there were some players who did not want the game on GOG. This in turn has resulted in huge backlash from gamers, and only adds to the unfortunate situation that the company is currently going through.