Hi friends! I’m watching Jacksepticeye play a phenomenal Taiwanese horror game called Devotion, and I really wanna try it out myself. But due to an easter egg in the game having to do with Winnie the Pooh and the chinese president, the game got review-bombed by chinese accounts on Steam and subsequently taken down from the platform by the developer, to “do a thorough QA check” and stuff.
That was on February 23rd this year, and it still hasn’t been re-released yet. Do you guys have any idea where I could still get a Steam key or even a DRM-free copy of the game?
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That seems like a primary example where steam’s policy of removing “off-topic” reviewbombs from a game should have been invoked. I wonder why it failed to trigger there but has protected larger publishers from people discussing their anti-consumer shady practices.
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Yes, I love that game too, but no news lately on when they can re-release the game without the “Easter Egg”. Apparently, it was a placeholder accidentally left in, but people lost their minds over it.
Guess we’ll have to wait a while. Other than that, there could be a slim chance that’s someone on Steam Trades or Barter has it.
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From what I’ve gathered, the devs pulled the game from Steam by themselves to prevent further backlash, but I think some serious pressure by the Chinese government was involved in some way. After all, Steam operates in China as well and would not want to risk losing such a huge market due to a controversy about one indie game that’s blown way out of proportion.
I just don’t get why Red Candle didn’t re-release the game yet. It can’t take that long to fix one simple art asset, and now, 9 months later, nobody is talking about that game anymore (besides silly old me lol).
I guess they’re occupied with the film adaptation of their first game, Detention, and I just hope they’ll turn their focus to their forgotten masterpiece after the movie’s out…
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This what you mean?
Maybe you can e-mail them at
contact@redcandlegames.com
To suggest a possible itch.io port? 
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Yes, this is it… And the “purchase” function still leads to a nonfunctioning Steam link, so that hasn’t gotten any update in the past 9 months as well 
But thanks for the suggestion, I’ll send them an email asking for an itch.io release. Their last statement on the matter, posted in July on their Twitter, stated they won’t be re-releasing the game on Steam in the near future, but maybe itch is a possibility they haven’t considered yet.
Edit: I sent them a fairly long and heartfelt email, I hope they see it and consider an itch.io release (or any kind of release for this game at all)
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That’s so brave and awesome of you. ^^ Hope they can manage it - it’s a really beautiful and deeply moving game.
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I can appreciate that at least they did respond. It’s a pity to pull an entire game for such a brief image, but let’s see if in future they can release it again - even if they have to change its name, so that the association of the image with the game’s name isn’t as strong.
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Matt, just saw this:
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Aw that’s so great, thanks for sharing! 
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I deleted that, b/c they took back the decision and decided against it, I saw immediately after I posted it… 
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What happened? 
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GOG announced that they would release the game, I find out and go make a post to alert you. Minutes later, I found out that GOG decided to back off from this decision… I went and deleted that post. Didn’t want you to get excited for nothing… 
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censure games is stupid and this case is patetic ,only for president images lol the world is pretty bad
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Aw noo pressure from somebody maybe
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Nuts. Pity. Disappointed but thanks Mao. Perhaps someday…
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I’ve seen GOG’s tweet, as well as the one by Red Candle Games about the withdrawal, and this just makes me so mad. It’s so transparent that CD Projekt Red just wants to save their bottom line and not have Cyberpunk get into trouble at the lucrative Chinese market.
Such a weak and pathetic corporation, I hope Devotion finally gets a home somewhere else, like itch.io
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can’t win against pooh bear 
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