Good Old Games, aka GOG, CD Projekt’s DRM-free storefront, is giving away censored games for free in an attempt to combat censorship recently instigated by a very angry organization and payment processors. As the rest of the industry caves under pressure, GOG is stepping up and fighting alongside us.
“GOG and game publishers launch FreedomToBuy.games to raise awareness on censorship in gaming,” reads a GOG statement inaugurating an initiative that is giving away 13 free games, which were previously deplatformed and censored on Steam and itch.io.
“Some games vanish. Not because they broke the law, but because someone decided they shouldn’t exist,” the statement goes further, with GOG clearly illustrating the unfairness of these recent sweeping deplatformings of various “unethical” and “immoral” games, all done at the request of the likes of Visa, Mastercard, and anti-pornography zealots.
You can claim the games in question at the following link, including Postal 2 and Agony, two otherwise good games that, though they contain various dark themes, are by no means either illegal or “unethical.” Make sure to do so within the next 30 hours or so, as the offer is time-limited.
This will net you GOG copies of these games, which, in line with the store’s policy, means you get to keep them as your own for life, without ever having to worry about any corporate rug pull rendering your product obsolete or unusable. GOG operates on a DRM-free basis, meaning there is simply no mechanism to disable your copy of the game or terminate your “license,” so your game is yours, and it cannot be taken away from you.
GOG is, quite honestly, doing God’s work trying to combat censorship that’s been taking over gaming ever since payment processors allegedly pressured Steam and itch.io into removing thousands of titles with NSFW content. This was supposedly the result of a years-long campaign by an Australian anti-pornography organization, Collective Shout, with payment processors acquiescing to its requests.
Mastercard and Visa have denied pressuring stores into doing any censorship or product removals, though they seemingly imply the games removed contained illegal content, which is why the networks did not want to associate with them.
What the truth is remains unknown, but it’s worrying enough that any entity, especially payment processors, can leverage their position and use it to censor, remove, or police content on moral, ethical, or other grounds.
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