The email in the comments
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.
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.
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.
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.
I do kind of like the fact that it’s in Unicode though. So things like this are actually possible. Sort of weird decision really.
They have lots of controversial symbols. The male pregnancy emoji pales in comparison to an actual swastika. Clockwise, counterclockwise, with dots and without.
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.
Racists wil Fuck around and then plead ignorance to avoid Finding Out.
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.
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…)
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?
European.
And you should tell those guys they stole their symbol from 21st century feminists:
I’m gonna need some proof of this. I wonder why a German, designing a sign for the German members of the SS in 1929 (10 years before Germany invaded Poland), would choose a sign with the purpose of harming a Polish feminist/pro-abortion movement.
It makes no sense and I can’t find any sources saying anything like that at all.
So cough up some sources. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
https://natemat.pl/324721,symbol-czerwonej-blyskawicy-co-oznacza-czerwony-piorun-na-strajku-kobiet
Article is in Polish, but I thing google translate or DeepL should work for you to get the gist. They picked this symbol as “lightning”
One lightning bolt by itself is a very different meaning to 2 right next to each other.
Especially so when next to a Black Sun
Double lightning bolt is unmistakably a nazi symbol.
The black sun alone is a Nazi symbol. Invented by Heinrich Himmler himself and used as decoration for their SS Ordensburg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_(symbol)?wprov=sfti1#Wewelsburg_mosaic_and_the_Nazi_periodYeah, but also the red lightning bolt sign of the polish pro-abortion movement was introduced in 2016. The SS sign with the sigrune was introduced in 1929.
If nazis had time travel, how did they manage to screw their war effort up so badly? They must have been even worse tacticians than we thought!
On that I cannot disagree. All I wanted to defend was a singular lightning bolt.
Dude, you got the timeline completely wrong: https://www.obieg.pl/en/210-the-red-lightning-of-all-poland-women-s-strike-forwards-and-backwards
The red lightning sign as part of the polish pro-abortion movement came into existence in 2016! A whopping 87 years AFTER the Nazis created the SS sign.
If the Nazis made the sign to discredit poland’s pro-abortion movement, they would have needed time travel to do so.
WTF I just learned about this.
Yeah, that article is about how the media deliberately misinterpreted the symbol as being nazi-like after the feminist movement picked it after the war and after the Nazis used their famous double lightning insignia.
This sort of contradicts your first comment … If I’m being kind I think you were just being inarticulate.
Idk about the polish feminist movement, but, respectfully, what the fuck are you on about
(Polish feminist lightning bolt I could find with 5s of research, they seem to do a pretty good job at differentiating their logo by having a single bolt with a different shape that is red and black instead of black and white. Red and black are usually associated with anti fascism btw)
What are you on about? Red and black anti fascism? Like, I dunno, people who wore those uniforms?
Yes, I am talking about this symbol. And while on the image you picked it clearly looks more like lightning, the narrower version was used too. And the idea that “SS” and “S” is the very same thing is just bonkers. All the alphabet would be symbols of hate by now.
Yes ?
Oh god.
So swastika (a hindu symbol) got taken by nazis and now nazi colours are taken by anti-nazis.
And everyone still thinks they know definitely what specific symbol/colour/letter symbolizes?
I’m giving up. I’m never correcting anyone on nazis ever again. If someone tells me that rainbow was used by hitler-lovers, I will just accept it as possible.
Just shut up, please. Your stupidity and lack of even basic knowledge is exhausting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_FrontThey’re just sealioning, because they think it makes them look smart. Nazis are all morons, so they naturally gravitate towards stupid actions.
OMG even black straight arrow is a nazi symbol?
“Found my grandpa’s helmet. He must’ve been an electrician or something.”
The transphobic company is also a nazi company.
I am shocked, shocked I say.
transohobic company
Yo imma need some blue text about that
I see what you mean
had they used 1 or 3 of the symbol instead, I don’t think we’d have this problem
Epic use of Epic Rap Battles clip
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What do you mean by protocol? I mean I understand your analogy, but not what protocol is an analogy for.
not OP, but i hear people using “playbook” in similar situations (if I’m understanding stupidcasey right)
Thanks, but I still don’t get it
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.
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.
They adapted the runes für the German newsletter. Aside from that you are correct: they knew what they were doing.
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…
Do you happen to have your GOG account in Germany or in German language?
no, because then i apparently wouldn’t have gotten the email at all!
Living in Germany woth German account but somehow English newsletters I also got the email.
Sure there’s intent. Obviously!
You forgot to hide your name.
The screenshot is from the PCGamer article
MFW
I don’t have the email but I would assume those emojis in this case are Slavic neopaganist symbols, also known as rodnovery.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rodnover_symbols
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.
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.
Yeah thinking about it using the lightning rune twice is really sus. Very hard to defend that.
Viewing this runes as they are, it comes to my mind the Black Sun symbol as 1st thought.
Edit: shit the game is called End of the Sun.
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
So GOG has a Nazi employee or it uses AI for newsletters.
As far as I understand it, those are pretty random runes, not specifically Slavic at all.
Not like specifically Slavic runes exist anyway.
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
“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.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.
There’s a multitude of ways to correct someone without coming off as a pedantic prick in the process
It does make it less funny when someone tries to politely correct and is wrong vs belligerently doing so with inaccurate information though.
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
Thats it?
Good Old
GamesGoebbelsI got the email three days ago here in America, I didn’t look at it at the time. I dunno if Gmail can edit an email after I’ve received it, I suppose they can. Here’s how it rendered just now when I opened it. I’m not defending anything, I just wanted to show what I found::
In not linking reddit, which has way more details about how it went about.
https://www.theverge.com/games/945088/gog-apologizes-email-nazi-symbols-the-end-of-the-sun
In email marketing, you typically send emails in batches. Sometimes for A/B testing, other times to avoid spam catchers/overloading the system. Or sometimes for geo location purposes (like everyone gets the email at 8am, so it batches it to time zone)
The GoG reps said they sent it to a small batch and after the call out, stop the email sends and fixed it.
Ditto here. If I’d seen it in my own inbox I’d be sending some choice words their way
Don’t let that stop you.
This is messed up, as a contributor to their Patreon to preserve games, I wrote some pretty harsh words.
Gaben, “we aren’t a monopoly there’s plenty of other publishers to buy from”
GOG
Steam once again using the winning strategy of doing nothing while your opponent fucks up
interesting how easily is for a company to not shoot itself in the foot if they don’t have public shareholders
Gog is privately owned now though?
Yep, and that’s why it’s also a good platform resistant to enshitification.
the stock market is a cancer on the economy.
Where’s the game store footgun meme?
Crap, there’s a quote about doing that, I just can’t remember whether it was Technoblade, Sun Tzu or Emperor Rosselle who said it…
You mean the Napoleon Bonaparte one?
Never interrupt your enemy when he’s about to make a mistake
Ah, should’ve known it was some frenchie. Though, I’m pretty sure it was Emperor Rosselle in that case
Context?
People can shit on Valve all they want, but at least they never went full Nazi.
What exactly happened? Newsletter email name had some nazi symbols as far as I can see. But why? Did they stated something for nazi? Or was it just a hacker prank? Any statements like at all?
Their excuse is that it’s a rendering issue. The OG message they intended to send wasn’t better in any measure, and they skipped sending the mail to people with german as their GOG language, so imo they did intend to send nazi shit and judt hoped nobody would make a fuss
This is what’s so funny.
That meme where Steam literally does nothing while their competitors shoot themselves in the foot is supposed to be a joke.
It’s obvious that GoG is bunch of polish Nazis and since CDPR one of founders is GoG owner, it means CDPR is Nazi.
100 % ai. Llms love emojis in subject lines
The strange thing is that they did notice It and elected to not send it in German instead of just not putting the symbols in the subject.
Iirc Germany has laws against it, so they probably wanted to avoid legal issues.
Which means they knew what it looked like and what they were sending.
They are not emoji 😓
Nah it’s the new email marketing meta. So many emojis and ASCII symbols. It’s the new play to try to stand out from all of the existing ad industry noise in people’s email inboxes
All of which have emojis now…
How is this one of several comments here calling them emojis? How are you all somehow here on Lemmy while seemingly having grandma level tech illiteracy?
They’re not emojis, they’re ascii characters. Emojis are emojis, a very limited set of pictures. These are not that.They’re not ASCII characters you dipshit. Learn how to use a computer before going around lecturing others.
is extremely pretentious and pedantic
somehow doesn’t know about unicode despite being compelled to technically “acshually” people
okay bud you need to calm down a little before posting stuff
Lol I love how you got your shit rocked after being so condescending
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This does make me think we should brand this onto the forehead of every ICE member
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