IMO no need for a disclosure if you're just stating a single fact.

Company policy requires me state this anytime I say something positive about Google. Otherwise there's the risk of it coming off as astroturfing.

I think it's better to err on the side of caution. By stating that fact you're defending Google, might be open that you work for the organisation.

It’s intentional, it’s a way to brag. They don’t need to at all. There’s a reason why nobody at other companies does that - people at other companies are normal and don’t think they’re gods gift to the world.

If you search for "Disclosure I work at Microsoft" site:news.ycombinator.com you get 300+ results.

Though Xicrosofter returns none.

It's required by company policy. Otherwise the comments could be seen as astroturfing. The policy is so strict that it specifically says you need to put a disclosure in every individual tweet, a disclosure in your Twitter bio isn't sufficient. I think that part of the rule is broken frequently though.

Interesting. Is it limited to Twitter? I can see the company fearing a backlash in social medias where you're operating under your own name (and thus can be traced back to Google) but what about anonymous and semi-anonymous forums like HN?

I re-read it, and it actually doesn't explicitly mention Twitter. It does mention how you can disclose using hashtags, which is why I misremembered it as talking about Twitter, because Twitter and hashtags are so linked in my mind.

It looks like it applies to basically any online post/comment, regardless of if it's anonymous.

Yes, but what I am talking about is the professional side. Sibling comments are talking about the Nov 1st launch games who were in the dark. Obviously Google can make it right - but that doesn't seem like what they are going to do.

It looks like Google is going to make it right:

https://nitter.net/OldeSkuul/status/1575863134857793536

https://nitter.net/burgerbecky/status/1575721820904632320

I don't really know if there's a better way to do it. If you're going to shut down and refund everyone's purchases, you need to disable purchases at the exact moment you make the announcement, otherwise people will buy things for semi-free knowing they'll get refunded in the future. If you tell game devs before the general public, it's going to leak out. If it leaks out you either need to lie and say it's not shutting down, or announce that it is shutting down, in which case the game devs didn't really get much advance notice.