I like the idea behind this bundle. But it's mid at best.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Oh man, somewhere in Rural Australia a born again Karen is having a heart attack and screaming about all the kids this is sending to hell.
Ironically (or perhaps completely unironically) the bundle requires a very weird workaround to get it to work in Australia.
Anyway, I redeemed it and got all those games added to my account. I doubt I'll ever even install any of them tbh, but I just felt like saying "screw you" to my compatriot.
Man, I really appreciate GOG. They're not perfect and, as with all corporations, one shouldn't take them completely at face value but their approach to game preservation, DRM and stuff like this are the reasons why I keep them as my primary choice for purchases whenever possible.
Is it a relatively cheap PR stunt? Maybe. Probably. It's still more than any other store did or said in regards to the recent events. Might as well grab some free publicity.
Yeah steams silence has been deafening through this. Itch came out and explained what was happening, GoG did this. All quiet from Steam.
Steam is criminally understaffed and always caves in with no resistance when any actor wants to block access to thousands of games to millions of potential customers. This is just the latest chapter in a long history of them neglecting their users.
For example a large number of affected games in this case have already been blocked in Germany for a while because Steam refused to implement any type of age verification. They didn‘t even want a dialog with authorities and flat out region blocked affected games instead.
Now, I will say that this move by Germany was complete hypocrisy because it only affected unrated games and porn, when other 18+ games are still perfectly available because they „only“ contain massive amounts of violence. Somehow age verification isn‘t necessary here for some reason and gambling with cosmetic items is fine too? Good to know we have our priorities straight. /s
Whatever the case, the point is Steam always choses the path of least resistance. Germany has a system that lets users verify their age anonymously. Sony has implemented it for their store no problem but Steam doesn‘t even bother to have a single German speaker in their support team.
I mean, Valve's silence isn't really surprising to be honest. They generally tend to keep quiet and let things go away on their own whenever possible. I'd be more surprised if the came out in force on this issue.
They did respond to the recent claim by Mastercard about them not being responsible for this recent mess - that's something, I guess? Here is a Kotaku article (don't kill me, that's the source I have for this) and here is the relevant part:
“Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so,” Valve’s statement sent over email to Kotaku reads. “Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution. Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand.”
There's a bit more in the linked article but that's pretty much the gist of it.
Valve relies on Visa/Mastercard to process billions worth of transactions occur every year. They’re not going to rock the boat unless they want to risk the whole business.
Their (relative?) silence, to me, is indicative of just how bad this duopoly is, and that Valve sees no alternative worth publicly mentioning at this juncture.
Oh absolutely, that's as much (if not more) of a reason for them keeping quiet. No big company will willingly jump into the pit against payment processors, there's way too much to lose.
Damn, GOG PR team does not play around.
Yeah, honestly, respect.
GOG is the goat :]
Just FYI, they may be getting hammered. Tried this and to authenticate it sent a 15-minute-expiration 2FA code, which took 3 hours to arrive.
I had to VPN back home to get around the email verification for a new location.
Funnily enough I tried that too, still needed a code. Probably will be fine, I'll try tomorrow,
I love free games but I don't know if I want these in my game library, too self-conscious lol
I've never played a NSFW game. I'm also, like, very much Ace, so, like, no chance in hell I'll ever will. BUT I can't resist the allure of free games! No matter what they are...
There's also Postal 2 in there lol, that convinced me to click the Claim button.
I've already hidden the games from the library, so I'll probably never see them again and forget they exist in about 6 months from now...
I just get an error when i try to claim postal 2...
I found this solution worked for me in Australia. It involved clicking a link to add the bundle to my cart, and then another link to check out, rather than going through the normal process.
You need a VPN if you're German.
You have to claim them all at once with the code.