this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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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.

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[–] JonsJava@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

Comments have gone off the rails.

Locking this down

[–] TaeKwonDoh@lemmy.world 7 points 3 hours ago
[–] KaChilde@sh.itjust.works 31 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] white_nrdy@programming.dev 5 points 2 hours ago

The "not sending to German customers" is the cincher to me.

[–] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

What's the game btw

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 5 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

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."

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 22 points 7 hours ago

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.

[–] placebo@lemmy.zip 25 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

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.

[–] mellowistheyellow@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 hours ago

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?

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 6 points 4 hours ago

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.

[–] CubitOom@infosec.pub 31 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] placebo@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

They didn’t use the The Schutzstaffel Nazi symbol in the German mailers because they thought it would violate hate speech laws.

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.

[–] harmony@piefed.blahaj.zone 15 points 5 hours ago

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.

[–] TipRing@lemmy.world 34 points 9 hours ago

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.

[–] fenrasulfr@lemmy.world 12 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

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.

[–] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 6 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 38 points 11 hours ago (6 children)

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.

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