The Taiwanese horror game Devotion is finally available for sale once again, over two years since its initial release.
Red Candle Games announced that they’d be self publishing Devotion, and it’s now available DRM free on their official website. Starting at $16.99 for the base game, it was one of the most well received horror games of 2019, and currently has a very respectable 85/100 on Metacritic.
The History of Devotion
Devotion was pulled from sale after only four days due to a hidden reference being hidden in the game, which compared Chinese President Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh. China has had a history of cracking down on anyone or anything that compares the President to the loveable Disney bear, as well as a blanket ban on the character across the country.
Devotion was taken down by their development team a few days after its initial February 2019 release for bug fixes, but never returned to the platform. The game was also review bombed by Chinese Steam users, sending the game’s rating from positive to negative. While Steam never actually ‘banned’ the game as such, Devotion never returned to Steam, even with the offending material removed, no reason was ever given for this.
Many have surmised that Steam, with over 30 million Steam users in China, feared being banned and simply declined to release the game, although this is unconfirmed. Part of this reason could also be developer Red Candle Games not being able to secure a publisher, as its two publishers’ names were removed from the Steam page following the Winnie the Pooh revelations.
Devotion and GOG
Devotion was in limbo right up until December 2020, when CD Projekt announced that Devotion would be coming to GOG, only to back out hours after the initial announcement, claiming: “Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG. After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store”.
Fans reacted angrily to CD Projekt’s backtracking on the issue, and it became yet another publicity crisis for the company, who’d also had fallout from the Cyberpunk 2077 release and allegations of poor working conditions. With a lack of publisher and retailer partners willing to work with Red Candle Games, Devotion would essentially face an unofficial ‘ban’.
But this story has had a happy ending, at least for now. Time will tell if China will try and take action against the site, or even if they can. However, this will affect Red Candle Games bringing the game to consoles, as I cannot see any major console wanting to risk their services being interrupted in one of the most populated countries on the planet.
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