Disclaimer: I am not personally invested in the whole thing. I am not cool and remote like a mountain but I don't care that much about GOG.
As I understand, GOG sent out a newsletter promoting a game with Nazi symbols.
The game's developers released a statement in a reddit comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/gog/comments/1txlz7z/hey_gog_wtaf/opxpgf0/
Afterwards GOG made two statements:
- https://old.reddit.com/r/gog/comments/1txmcyd/ts_gotta_be_racist_gog_explain/opxtour/
- https://www.gog.com/forum/general/weird_subject_line_choice_for_a_newsletter/post60
I don't expect folks to read through the whole thing but some surface level thoughts would be appreciated. Like they make a lot of emotionally charged statements citing culture and I can't tell if they are genuine or hot air.
20 minutes before I opened the thread someone made this comment in it that I think basically nails it: https://old.reddit.com/r/gog/comments/1txlz7z/hey_gog_wtaf/oq2dwrt/
I also seem to remember @AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml writing up about the kolovrat and how it wasn't actually part of Slavic/Polish culture.
completely intentional on both parts, the devs and GOG. especially putting the symbols in the newsletter like they did. stacking them like this combines to a black sun which has no unicode because it's a symbol invented by a leading nazi in the late 30s, and there is NO reason whatsoever you would ever combine two S runes.
edit: also... pulling the newsletter from Germany specifically is very strange. They have laws on disseminating nazi symbols and GoG selling in the EU could get them in trouble for this headline. They said it had to do with "local sensitivities" which only confounds the issue. like, do they think the rest of europe likes the nazis except for germans? what's the explanation here? I also find it strange they had some random rep do damage control on the reddit thread alone instead of sending another newsletter. GoG is a pretty big store.
some people excusing this on reddit as if Poles are somehow too simple to know their own history with fascism (on both sides of it) but also good to see others are calling it out for what it is.
oh also there was never any point where Slavs used the runic alphabet and the historical links are tenuous (historical records would just as well describe the oracle bones in China), they used completely different alphabets by the 9th century that we have historical records of so no legitimate* idea why they would write their logo in runes lol. Germanic peoples are not Slavic... unless you really wanted there to be a link.
Are you referring to this topic?
I searched for it instance wide and found a comment I made 3 years ago linking to a piece on the kolovrat, so now I'm thinking I might have been misremembering and was thinking of that article
Rod prastari svi smo, a Goti mi nismo,
Slavenstva smo drevnoga čest.
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