GOG apologizes for emailing Nazi runes to its followers
2026-06-05 · GOG
Poor communication
#apology
Sources (4)
-
- “The digital game retailer has not clearly explained how the hate symbols made it into an email, but apologized for the "unfortunate visual association." GOG has apologized for a "Slavic adventure" newsletter sent out today that featured a number of very distinct Nazi runes in its subject line.”
- “"We are sorry for today's newsletter," GOG wrote in an apology on X. "We made a series of mistakes: We created an unfortunate visual association by placing the runes incorrectly, we used the wrong logo for The End of the Sun, we did not check the display of the newsletter on mobile devices—which came out worse—and we didn't port the feedback from our German QA to other languages."”
- “GOG said it stopped the mailout when it noticed the error, and is "revising our review process to enforce more checks and catch these mistakes earlier."”
-
- “GOG, the DRM-free PC games storefront formerly known as Good Old Games, has issued an official apology on X for “an unfortunate visual association” that was spotted in its latest newsletter for the game The End of the Sun.”
- “The creators of The End of the Sun were equally confused by this, as they stated in a comment on Reddit that they “don’t know why” GOG chose to use these symbols in the newsletter: “Really, we were also totally surprised when we saw the logo in the newsletter (the old logo) and the symbols next to the newsletter title. But we are in contact with GOG, and we believe this was like an AI recommendation to use those symbols, or something like that. We will ask GOG to just clarify things in the next newsletter.””
- “We made a series of mistakes: We created an unfortunate visual association by placing the runes incorrectly, we used the wrong logo for The End of the Sun, we did not check the display of the newsletter on mobile devices – which came out…”
- “GOG stated in a post on X that it had “made a series of mistakes” in its newsletter for the game, but further clarified the reasoning behind accidentally emailing people Nazi symbols in a separate comment on Reddit: “What was displayed in several devices as doppelrune is out of our control. ᛋ was displayed as ϟ on several devices (might display for you differently here as well just letting you know).””
-
- “An advertising email for the indie game “The End of the Sun,” available to heise online, showed characters that, depending on the display, strongly resemble the double sigrune of the SS in some email inboxes.”
- “For the runes, GOG used the Unicode symbol U+03DF (ϟ, Greek Small Letter Koppa) twice in succession.”
- “However, in Gmail inboxes and Outlook, these characters are displayed as two lightning bolts with a strong resemblance to the SS runes.”
- “According to the company, GOG stopped distribution after the error was noticed. According to GOG, the German QA team recognized the problem before distribution and pointed it out. However, the feedback did not reach the colleagues responsible for the international versions of the newsletter in time.”
-
- “GOG sent a newsletter about the game The End of the Sun on June 5th that included symbols associated with the Nazi SS. The Steam competitor issued a statement attributing the inclusion to a “series of mistakes,” including miscommunication with the German QA team, inconsistent font rendering, and being understaffed during a bank holiday, among other things.”
- ““I also recognize that placing two such runes next to each other could create an unfortunate association with symbols used by the Nazi regime. This was noticed before distribution, and out of respect for local sensitivities, the material was not sent to the German community.””