Following the discovery of a Winnie the Pooh meme in Devotion that was mocking Chinese president Xi Jinping, the game was pulled from Steam. After a bit of clarification, it was learned that the developers chose to make this move to go through the entire game to ensure nothing else of the sort was included before it returned to Steam. While fans and developers alike were hoping for a relatively quick turnaround, quite a bit has happened in the meantime, resulting in the possibility that the game isn’t coming in the near future.
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Red Candle Games recently took to Twitter to share a letter from them to the fans. In said letter, we can see that there has been some serious damage done to both the developers and their partner. “For the past four months, the art asset incident related to ‘Devotion’ has caused immeasurable harm to Red Candle Games and our partner,” reads the letter. “We would like to offer our most sincere apology to all impacted teams and personnel. Red Candle and its partner are assuming all responsibilities for the losses; we will not stop in our endeavor to prevent the damage from worsening.”
Greetings, we are Red Candle Games from Taiwan. To all of our players, industry and media friends, we would like to provide an update on ‘Devotion’. pic.twitter.com/wfGTUbHtHx
— redcandlegames (@redcandlegames) July 15, 2019
They then go on to say how all parties have been affected by the incident. “While mediation is still in progress, Red Candle’s co-founders have reached a unanimous decision to not re-release ‘Devotion’ in the near term, including but not limited to obtaining profit from sales, revision, IP authorization, etc. to prevent unnecessary misconception,” the letter continued.
“As we reflect on the situation, we notice many players, industry friends, and the media are starting to understand that the incident was indeed a malfunction of project management, not a deliberate act. If, in the future, the public would be willing to view this game rationally and allow us the opportunity to rebuild trust with our players, Red Candle would reconsider re-releasing ‘Devotion’.”
Devotion was previously available on PC via Steam. As for when or if it will return, that is completely up in the air at this point.
What do you think about all of this? Are you hoping to see Devotion return to Steam at some point? Sound off in the comment section below, or feel free to hit me up over on Twitter @anarkE7!
