GOG subscribers report receiving a promotional email for The End of the Sun that includes symbols resembling Nazi iconography, including SS-style lightning bolts and a Black Sun-like emblem. The incident has sparked backlash and questions over how the imagery ended up in an official marketing message, with GOG now issuing a response.

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.

  • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    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.

  • Protoknuckles@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    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!?

      • Zombie@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        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.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel

      • Protoknuckles@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        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?