Gog Promotional E-Mail Containing Nazi Symbols Goes Out to Subscribers
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.
https://outof.games/news/9091-gog-promotional-e-mail-containing-nazi-symbols-goes-out-to-subscribers/Open linkView original on quokk.au236
Comments130
Comments have gone off the rails.
Locking this down
Zero explanation for why there were two of them, and the thing about Germany makes them look worse.
It's also not even correct. I am in Germany, with a German (but English-language) GOG account and I received the email with those symbols. Someone should get fired over this.
Yo wtf that's mens rea / admission of guilt
They just admitted they knew it was bad and were like "but it's legal in the US so it's fine to send it there" but ignore it's about as bad as it gets for legal symbols.
But it's not the same symbol despite being two of them.
Let's not nazis hijack the letter S and fucking sun now shall we? This is so tiring.
As much as I would like to not let Nazis hijack certain things, the simple fact is they did, they have, and they continue to. If Nazi-ism were gone and a distant memory, which perhaps even a decade ago I might've believed we were nearly at, then we can start working on reclaiming what they have polluted and bringing back its true, full history.
But that has all changed, the masks are coming off and we are starting to see how far these white supremacists have metastasized and how much power they are beginning to take control of with their fascism. Now is not the time to begin trying to reclaim these symbols, precisely when they are actively using them as dogwhistles and trial balloons, actively spreading their vile ideology and starting to signal to and coordinate with each other to make their ever-so-predictable moves against humanity once again.
And they decided to remove them specifically for Germany because...?
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!?
to me it's pretty clear that it was intentional. like ffs, they explicitly chose to send the email with that title everywhere except germany because it's illegal to have nazi symbolism there. so obviously they knew! they realized what this came across as!
idk if it's an edgy representative, and now they're defending that rep or something (or maybe the rep is the one writing the shitty non-apologies)... but yea, i'm downloading all my offline installers and if they don't have a real apology and commitment to not fucking do this again then my account is gone.
fuck gog. the ai shit was bad enough, this is fucking unacceptable. i'd rather put up with steam's drm than give money to neonazis.
As an Easterner, I fully agree with that highlighted comment from Polish dude - the symbol you see in the title has nothing to do with Nazis, it is cultural heritage that we still use around.
For us it's different, but idea is the same - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugunskrusts
Better don't go to India
Let me remind you that this is Polish game and GoG is owned by a Polish company.
EDIT: I.. don't honestly understand the downvotes. Do you like not believe me and Wikipedia?
EDIT2: I'm assuming people somehow assumed I'm talking about runes, when in reality I just wanted to elaborate on local cultural heritage (the sun-looking thing in the game's logo, not emails)
The Schutzstaffel is purely a Nazi symbol.
There was no reason to use 2 of those runes together, especially when not using it in German mailers because they thought it would violate hate speech laws.
What about the ss runes? Got a rationalization for that?
You still use them around because you have fucking nazis going around. Poland is the ONLY country REQUESTING the military base from the Burger Reich. Makes you think eh, what would they possibly have in common? 🤔🤔🤔
Trust me when I say this - many of the folks don't even really understand Nazis. The symbols have nothing to do with them, it's deeply enriched in our cultural heritage way before Nazis stole the symbols. One of the most respectable/known things from history in my country is "Order of Lāčplēsis". Look it up, notice the dates, and then look up when Latvia was founded. The people who held the title were also involved in fighting against Nazis.
This is all verifiable online. Sometimes the East European history and culture is not what you can assume from GoG emails. We very much hate nazis as they literally brought us into wars and occupations, just like we can assume Poles are not very happy about Nazis attacking them and wrecking their country for decades.
You know what's really annoying? That we essentially get hated for our cultural heritage because the baddies stole a symbol
Let me remind you that Nazis saw slavs as subhumans, next in line after Jews. Poles and Latvians are slavs
I just want to let you know that on my app you are labelled as Zionist (the coincidence in life eh), as such I have no respect for you or your opinions. With your respectable/known orders and history I wipe my ass and what GOG put was Nazi symbology. :)
Huh? I'm like at the opposite world of Israel and you can probably scan my comments for that stuff, doubt you'll find me showing much support for a genocide.
EDIT: Actually, read my profile bio. It might have been due to questioning the numbers from early Lemmy days, but that's pretty much history and in no way makes me a zionist, but someone who critically sees information that's hard to believe and I usually need more proof than a reddit/lemmy comment.
This you facefuck?
It took me literally 2 minutes. Ah yes, you are a critical inspector of facts, yes. Would you like me to show you israeli scum RAPING inmates and civilians defending them? Or kids sniped? Or burned? Or Israeli stats on the war? Or hospitals/refugee camps/schools being bombs with thermobaric bombs?
let me know mr. “you don’t know what Nazi is”.
Did you also stand by them when they started using AI images in the store? Or when they started that patrons thing where they just ask you to donate to a for-profit store?
GOG has been kind of weird lately, and I can't say I like what I've been seeing.
The second yes, the first no. I can see a patreon type thing for game preservation being a good thing so long as they maintain a paper trail. You're not wrong though.
Aw maaan. I saw some of these and managed to overlook them separately, but taken together it's not looking great. That sucks, I liked GOG.
The two together at the end is the ss lightning bolt. Hitlers gestapo.
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?
A nitpick but the Gestapo were just a part of the SS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel
The twin suns of tatooine?
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.
Some people still keep the old meaninga going.
The west hates the Swastika for obvious reasons, but whenever I go to an Indian store there are swastika brand products because it still has its old meaning to Indians.
First time I went to an Indian coworkers house I stopped dead in my tracks when I approached their door, it was a Hindu special time and they had a giant swatika on the door.
I'll give you that, and the swastika and manji came to mind. I'd originally included in my post the suggestion about going and putting up swastikas and was like, "wait... That's still a thing."
I get that it's a Norse rune and I recognize the history and heritage in the same way, but in that case maybe just one ᛋ would have sufficed. However, considering someone thought enough to say, "Hey, this is going to be problem in Germany." it would have hurt literally no one to just say, "maybe we just shouldn't do it at all." Deleted. Literally no controversy.
Instead... here we are.
The "Hey this might be a problem" is definetly a problem
Ok but is this an indian game or using a swastika?
I wasn't responding to the game post, but the posters comment about symbol meanings. If you read our Congo further you'd see
The ss lightning strike "rune" was literally invented less than a hundred years ago. It's got fuck all to do with the hakenkreuz corruption of the swastika
Was willing to buy the “oopsie daisy! The symbols displayed incorrectly” defence, but admitting that they KNEW the issue existed, put two of them side by side, and then doubled down by basically saying “one bad egg shouldn’t spoil a perfectly good rune”, then not sending the offending email to German customers is baffling!
Time to demand a few refunds I think. Can’t support any justification for promoting fascism.
The "not sending to German customers" is the cincher to me.
So they knew it was there and decided not to send it to the market where it would be possibly illegal. This is pretty brazen and I cannot imagine what they are thinking would come from this that would make the reputational impact worthwhile.
After nearly two decades working in IT companies, I can see how someone could discover this issue and notify someone else, but it was never properly escalated and addressed due to ineffective internal organization. I don't mean to defend them, but I don't see any reasonable explanation for why they would have done this intentionally.
They didn't use the The Schutzstaffel Nazi symbol in the German mailers because they thought it would violate hate speech laws.
There was no reason to use 2 of those runes together.
That doesn't contradict what I wrote, though. I can see how some manager who didn't care enough or didn't understand the implications would accept this half‑assed measure somebody suggested on slack.
I mean, they should be criticized and shamed for what's happened, but I see no evidence of malicious intent.
Sadly, that's the point of dog whistling, to have some doubt to whether it was actually innocent.
With how prevalent dog whistles are in neo-Nazism, it's not surprising that people are sceptical. It's a whole thing to send "subtle" Nazi symbology and then deny everything when called out.
It looks pretty intentional from where I'm standing. At best the shot caller was apathetic to it looking like actual Nazi iconography to some recipients.
After four decades of life on this planet, I can think of a million reasons why this was done intentionally. Maybe you just arent that smart?
Surprising amount of people here seem to believe the PR bullshit non-apology. You probably think Musk just did a Roman salute too. Pathetic.
Good to know most people have a brain and are capable of critical thinking to easily see through the bullshit.
One day I wish we as a collective humanity can reclaim these symbols. Growing up in a Chinese household. I've know the manji as symbol associated with the Buddha, not as a symbol of hate and oppression.
Neither the "Doppelrune" (Doublerune) nor the "Siegrune/Sig-Rune" (Victory rune) are historic runes and were created 1929 by Walther Heck. The "Siegrune" itself wasn't even inspired by the germanic "sowilo" rune (ᛋ), Walther Heck himself stated, that he created it, as he disliked the soft form of the "S" in the latin alphabet and wanted to provide an alternative to the "Fraktur" style that was commonly used in germany at that time.
This ᛋ is "sowilo/sigel/sol", the germanic rune for sun
This ϟ is the "Siegrune", created 1929 by Walther Heck as an alternative to the letter "S" and was used by the Nazis
This ϟϟ is the "Doppelrune", also a creation by Walther Heck and used as a symbol for the SS
Gotcha. Nothing historical about that specific symbol. Never meant as a symbol of fortunate or goodness. Just some Heck dude who thought an angular S was cool
Ackchyually It’s about ethics in gaming journalism.
“You don’t understand, they call us Nazi so we have to do this to prove them wrong!! Why are you doing this to us!!!”
This needs to be properly adressed and whoever did this and whoever greenlighted it should the full feel consequences.
All that being said I can not see this being a company wide intention. Just from a business point of view this is so stupid that it beggars believe. Even if the entire company are neo nazis they would know that openly espousing those ideas would result in losing customers and losing partners.
The big game publishers would not want to be associated with Nazis at least publicly so they might pull games from GoG to stop the reputational damage. Anyone that has at least a functioning brain would stop buying from them until there is a full explenation and proper resolution.
And considering GoG barely keeps their head above water, they can not afford this at all. Unless the new owner wants to tank the company and sell off the assets.
Good Old Germany
The fact the game has changed logo and gog decided they'd include the old one stinks.
This makes the runes in the gog mail feel like a reaction to the devs "going back" on their original iconography and an attempt at fixing it.
"Oh, you changed your symbol because it was too nazi-like? Let us double down on it."
Any publicity is good publicity, I guess.
Game looks quite good. No evidence of any Nazi related stuff in the gameplay, Steam forums etc. That seems entirely to be GOG's doing
Might buy it at on Steam at 45% off as part of their "women-led games" sale.
What's the game btw
where are all the people that were attacking valve yesterday? c'mon guys! GOG is the best, right??
But on GOG, you actually own your games! Well, you don't, but you can download the files and run the game without the launcher! Well, you also can on Steam and EGS, but... uhhh... whatever, Valve is a monopoly, this is why you should buy from GOG and not any other major competitor to the monopoly like EGS, Ubisoft Connect, BattleNet, itch, Xbox Store, Amazon...
GOG is a meme service, and its fanboys are even more annoying than Valve's simply because their platform of choice is objectively worse. At least no one defends EGS or Ubisoft Connect.
I for one complain about both platforms for subtly different reasons!
Now I've got one more with gog, I guess.
Other than the rare direct purchase, where are folks getting their games anyway? Zoomplatform??
Dont worry, when we let Nazis take symbols they'll eventually accumulate them all and we'll have none left to use.I think we should take them back—just like with 👌Educate thyself below --v
Neither the "Doppelrune" (Doublerune) nor the "Siegrune/Sig-Rune" (Victory rune) are historic runes and were created 1929 by Walther Heck. The "Siegrune" itself wasn't even inspired by the germanic "sowilo" rune (ᛋ), Walther Heck himself stated, that he created it, as he disliked the soft form of the "S" in the latin alphabet and wanted to provide an alternative to the "Fraktur" style that was commonly used in germany at that time.
This ᛋ is "sowilo/sigel/sol", the germanic rune for sun
This ϟ is the "Siegrune", created 1929 by Walther Heck as an alternative to the letter "S" and was used by the Nazis
This ϟϟ is the "Doppelrune", also a creation by Walther Heck and used as a symbol for the SS
Thanks for educating us. I didn't know this, and I appreciate you recommenting this multiple times to dispell any plausible justifications.
I did not know this, i assumed it was stolen like the swastika and others.
This honestly makes GOGs fuckup even more egregious.
Is this a case of AI ?
No. They admitted they were aware that the symbols might render in this way on some systems and they went ahead with it anyway.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/09/nx-s1-5462609/grok-elon-musk-antisemitic-racist-content
THAT.
IS.
WHY.
I.
PIRATE!
You pirate because GOG made a fuck-up in its marketing comms?
The fuck-up in questionl letting nazis post their newsletters and then retconning excuses instead of firing said nazi
Just think they're ukrainian, then it's OK
Oh look an ml account repeating the Ukraine nazi Russian propaganda talking point. How surprising.
Til the new York times is now Russian propaganda...
Given that they were nazi propaganda in 1938 and creating the October 7 mass rape narrative... it's not that much of a stretch.
Utterly aside from the general content of this thread.
I know nothing of the pieces printed or their leanings, nor is it relevant for the purposes of this response.
That argument is the weakest of sauces, drizzled over a disappointing bad-faith steak.
A single article doesn't define a whole paper (nor was that claimed).
A papers' reputation doesn't give them a free pass for printing something outside of their normal editorial quality control.
Argue the actual claims, this bad faith deflection bullshit is fooling no-one.
When this is the claim being replied to, forgive me and anyone else from not giving it any graces. Especially when it is starting with as you say
Especially when a user is literally calling what the leader of Ukraine did last week Russian propaganda.
They came in hot, you go at it, zero problems with that from me.
All I meant is that you should go at it with actual arguments.
Even if they are objectively incorrect, responding with deflection and fallacy makes your position look weak, like you don't have an actual point.
My point is there isn't an argument to be made. We're in a games thread about how gog is out downplaying nazi symbols just as a Ukrainian nazi collaborator got state honors and that is called Russian propaganda.
How are we in a place where nazis aren't ostracized
I got that email. Symbols verbatim
Let's look those up.
𖥞
not a germanic rune
꥟
not a germanic rune
ϟ
not a germanic rune
0/3 germanic/nazi runes. They resemble if you willfully go there.
verdict: reaction bait for reddit-grade pearl clutchers
This explanation falls apart when it comes to the SS symbol.
Gog claims that they were using the sowilo rune, but as you found they were using the lower case koppa letter. The sowilo rune is included in unicode, there was no reason to use the greek letter koppa for it ... unless they wanted to hint at something else. And the elephant in the room: why did they put 2 of the things next to eachother? Gog hasn't found a suitable excuse for that so far.
It's an obvious dog whistle and it's rightfully being called out.
A straight line isn't a Nazi symbol either, but if you put 8 of them together in to a pinwheel shape, well now we have a problem.
Context matters.
This has to be satire. You're doing satire, right?
No, its bait.
Then why bother removing them for Germany
just look at these two innocent numbers
Still think there is any malicious intent here??
So nobody here wants to actually read the article where it was very clearly explained that this was a rendering error of a different symbol on some devices?
Y'all just really, really wanna be mad, huh?
We all did, we also read the other messages and saw through the flimsy excuse provided.
Please do tell us why putting two Greek Koppa together was necessary, and how it relates to Polish cultural history. Why they realised that it appeared Nazi related, and instead of simply not doing it decided to only not do it in Germany.
Y’ou just really, really wanna downplay this, huh?
Lol, no, I'm just here to laugh at everyone malding about what is very clearly an innocent mistake.
Seriously, this is Tankie Triad levels of conspiracism, y'all.
Funny hill to die on
As long as the nazi's dead
Funny hill to make a mountain out of
If it’s just a mistake, then why did they only remove the symbol in the email sent to German customers, where it could get them into legal trouble?
The Schutzstaffel is purely a Nazi symbol.
There was no reason to use 2 of those runes together, especially when not using it in German mailers because they thought it would violate hate speech laws.
Either you are trying to gaslight people into thinking that ᛋᛋ is not a symbol of hate and genocide, or you are extremely ignorant.
Did you read the article? It's not Schutzstaffel.
Tell me then, why would they use 2 side by side. And why not show those symbols to Germans?
This seems like just poor planning rather than signaling. Let be real here. What is GOG or the devs to gain from this, it's silly.
No, I'm just capable of reading an article and understanding an explanation, unlike you and most other people in the thread, apparently.
Tell me then, why would they not show those symbols to Germans?
They didn't even use the rune though. They didn't use the sowilo rune ᛋ but the koppa symbol ϟ because it looks more like the sig rune. If they actually meant to use the sowilo rune they would have and also why make a doppelrune? This is nazi shit.
It's a rune and displays differently depending on where you are viewing it.
That author is one hell of a pearl clutcher.
Idk, GOG even said they were aware it might "cause problems". So why include them at all and risk the trouble? They even removes it from the German announcement. Like come on, thats obvious enough where you probably shouldn't send it to the whole world if you won't send it to the country the Nazis spawned in.
Nazi symbology is probably illegal in Germany.
Not probably, it is, that still doesn't mean it makes sense to send it to the rest of the world. The Nazis were kinda a big deal that everyone knows about.
It's double runes of a different unicode character, they recognised the whole thing would appear to be Nazi and they deliberately did not send it to Germany where it is illegal.
The reddit post does a good job of people calling this out: https://www.reddit.com/r/gog/comments/1txlz7z/hey_gog_wtaf/
opinion discarded
Oh boy! Look at you making assertions. Please fix this for us by boycotting GOG and telling all your friends at Starbucks.
Oh, explain how using the Schutzstaffel insignia is acceptable?
Also they knew exactly what they were doing before sending it ACCORDING TO THEMSELVES. They even chose not to send the email to German users because of it
Like, if Starbucks put a swastika on their cups, and the symbol came out 45° rotated on some of them (as the third reich did), and they just decided not to ship those ones to Germany, it'd be pretty hard to defend.
Why people cry so much about something like this? Yes, the Nazi's did something horrible and I'm not here to tell the contrary, but why in the hell using those simbols offend so much?
Because Nazi dog whistles are a problem. Nazism didn’t end in 1945.
Probably because people that still think like Nazis continue to use these symbols for sending messages of hate.
We don’t think it; we know it.
I think you didn't parse that comment right.
I was asking why people cry about that, not defending it
You can disapprove of something and not "cry" about it. Do you cry every time you dislike something?
You are asking why people having a problem with nazi symbols being used in a time when we literally have neo nazis gaining power and you are doing it in a way that intimates having a problem with nazi symbols being used is mockworthy.
I know right? It was just an innocent nod to Nazis.
I can't even heil myself in public anymore, people are just so sensitive and overly political.
I guess I touched a nerve with that question? I guess that I should open a PR to Lemmy so they can ban people who type (or even ask) about those scary symbols?
Yes, Hitler was so devastated he shot himself in the head.
You honestly seem more bothered by the offense people take, however much you try to pass it off as surprise. Clearly you feel threatened by criticism of nazis so what’s that about?
They can't help but self report
Try reading a book instead of asking strangers online if you actually care to learn something (I get the feeling that you do not)
Here a whole 30 mins and I have already had the pleasure of encountering a fascist
That's exactly what I mean with people that cry about everything, I just ask and then they put words in your mouth that you never said
Thank you for helping me pop my Lemmy block user cherry. You made it easy to give in.
Who is crying?
Yup, it's that classic fake outrage bullshit that permeates the cringiest corners of social media. They need to indulge in these performative contests to signal "superior" virtue over logical moderates who cooly observe that symbols on a screen are not intrinsically hateful & are objectively incapable of harm. People acting & realizing shitty ideologies are capable of harm. Stopping them is the furthest thing from denouncing a symbol.
They're "fighting fascism" they claim. Are they, though? If objecting over symbols "stopped fascists", no one's ever seen it.
They're claiming these symbols send messages of hate. What's the "message of hate" here? These sun-related symbols (fitting the game's sun & rune theme) are vague.
They're stroking their justice boners over some unearned sense of accomplishment that they "fought the good fight". Denouncing symbols is the least meaningful opposition or rational discourse: it doesn't challenge shitty ideas or their adherents. It does absolutely nothing.
Irrational losers, however, don't like critical thought. Discrediting their bullshit sense of superiority & accomplishment (at doing nothing meaningful despite feeling like they are) offends them.
Shut up Elon. Nazis always deserve a beating.