The creators of horror game that was removed from Steam say that it will not come back anytime soon

When he came out in February, Devotion received thousands of positive reviews on Steam and became popular with Twitch viewers. But it was removed after only a few weeks when fans discovered an art in the game that seemed to make fun of the Chinese president. Five months later, the studio behind the game says that it will still not come back to Steam "in the short term".

"While the mediation is still ongoing, the co-founders of Red Candle have taken the unanimous decision not to re-publish" Devotion "in the short term, including to gain a profit on sales, overhaul, authorization intellectual property, etc. unnecessary false idea, "Red Candle Games said in a statement posted on Twitter this morning. "In reflecting on the situation, we notice that many players, industry friends and the media are beginning to understand that the incident was actually a malfunction of project management, not a deliberate act."

The incident to which the studio refers was the appearance of a scroll in the game containing the name of Chinese President Xi Jinping, next to the name of Winnie the Pooh and the word "fool". It's a popular meme associated with making fun of the president after China banned the new Winnie the Pooh film for the perceived similarities between Pooh and Jinping. The fact that the same appears in a game developed by a studio in Taiwan, considered part of China but with its own elected government, has only made the situation more difficult for developers.

After the discovery, Chinese players started bombing the game on Steam and the game was later removed. Red Candle Games stated that the image in question was a fictitious item created by a member of the team and that it was in no way intended to appear in the final version of the game or to represent the point of view of the team. studio. Despite this explanation, the publisher of Red Candle Games, Indievent, broke ties with the studio and in June, the Chinese authorities revoked the Indievent commercial license.

Given DevotionThe popularity and rave reviews of criticism before art surfaces, many players, including myself, have been curious to see when it will be available to play again and in what form. In May, Red Candle Games announced Vice he was planning the reissue of Devotion to be the same as the original, minus the offensive substitute art. Part of the problem with the game is that many players think that its story is also an anti-Chinese allegory about the country's relations with Taiwan. As a result, Red Candle Games has tried to downplay these fan theories.

"In" Devotion ", his central message concerns the tragedy of a loving family twisted by the frantic belief of a religious cult," the studio said today. "We made a critical and unprofessional mistake when producing the game. We are saddened by the fact that the game's goal has been drastically altered since the discovery of the wrong artistic asset. As a result of the incident, some still have different speculations about "devotion".

"As regrettable as the incident is, we must bear all the consequences. We hope for a second chance in the near future. A chance to prove it, Red Candle and his partner just wanted to create a great game and nobody wanted such an incident to happen. "