GOG Says It Will "Focus Only on Games" After Another Social Media Faux Pas

GOG's social media has once again come under fire, this time for using a Twitter hashtag meant to promote transgender rights to instead promote its classic PC games. The tweet was quickly deleted and today GOG tried to explain the tweet.

"Classic PC games #WontBeErased on our watch. Yeah, how's that for some use of hashtags," GOG tweeted yesterday. The hashtag #WontBeErased advocates for transgender persons following a reported policy change from the Trump administration that threatens transgender rights.

While the tweet was posted and deleted sometime yesterday GOG tweeted an explanation earlier this afternoon. "Yesterday, we posted a tweet containing a trending hashtag as a pun. The tweet was neither intended as a malicious attack, nor as a comment on the ongoing social debate," GOG writes. "GOG should focus only on games. We acknowledge that and we commit to it."

The latest tweet isn't the first tweet GOG had to retract and either explain away or apologize for. In July of this year GOG tweeted a promotion for Postal 2 with the picture of a tombstone for "Games Journalism" that was linked to GamerGate. GOG later apologized writing, "Unfortunately, we've failed to make the association between the image, the date, and an abusive movement. Our intention was never to hurt or condone hate."

In August of this year Cyberpunk 2077's official Twitter account (GOG is owned by Cyberpunk developer CD Projekt Red) tweeted "Did you just assume their gender!?" to which CD Projekt Red again apologized for. "Sorry to all those offended by one of the responses sent out from our account earlier. Harming anyone was never our intention."

While GOG says that content on its social media channel will be gaming-related going forward there's no denying that there's a pattern here of plain disregard for courtesy at CD Projekt Red's social media accounts. The pattern has been disappointing and perhaps a better understanding of social media policy is needed.