Devotion was about to come out again. GOG sales blocked »Vortex
The Taiwanese horror film Devotion is perhaps really cursed. The PT-inspired game from Red Candle Games, first released in February 2019 and withdrawn shortly afterwards due to inappropriate allusions to the Chinese president, was due to finally return to sale this week. Instead, her incredible story continues with another bizarre chapter.
Developers from the Red Candle Games studio announced yesterday that Devotion will be released on GOG this Friday. A few hours later, however, this information paid off again. Representatives of the CD Project, which owns GOG, issued a statement that they had received many dissenting messages from the players, and therefore decided not to sell the game. As you can probably imagine, this announcement triggered another avalanche of messages and comments.
Critics do not like the fact that CD Projekt blocked the release of the game by its decision, which is preceded by a controversial reputation, but its potentially problematic content has long been removed and the rest of the game has nothing to do with it and is not flawed. As in the case of the withdrawal of the game from Steam last February, it is assumed that the reason for the change in attitude was the reaction of Chinese players, who still consider Devotion a great insult. Therefore, the CD Project is concerned about the reaction of the Chinese government.
Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG. After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store.
– GOG.COM (@GOGcom) December 16, 2020
Devotion was to be sold at GOG for 14 euros. This morning, Red Candle Games issued a statement stating that the authors respect the decisions of the CD Project, even though they are sorry. The team apologized to the players looking forward to the re-release of Devotion. The question is whether Devotion could not choose another, even a minority distribution platform, where players would probably also find it due to the publicity that the title receives. Someone more courageous would undoubtedly be found.
Devotion is a horror film set in the eighties, which was inspired not only by Taiwanese realities, but also by local folklore and culture. In his review last year, Zdeněk gave the game a 7/10 mark and praised it quite a bit. So it’s a pity that few people tried it, because it was originally only sold for a few days.
In the original version, a poster appeared that identified Chinese President Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh. It is a recurring example, which is taboo in China, just like the whole famous character now. The Red Candle Games have repeatedly apologized for the incident, saying it was not an intention but a failure of control mechanisms. However, Chinese players pointed to the alleged anti-Chinese attitudes of the Taiwanese developers themselves.
Already during this year, Devotion at home in Taiwan was released again in a special boxed version. However, she did not get into the world. In February this year, the title was selected for archiving by the Harvard University Library. Devotion has formed a team of approximately twelve members and continues the successful game Detention, which has undergone a film and series adaptation.
