Do the opposite of what this guy said. DON'T buy the game. Don't play it. Ignore it. Fuck DRM. Don't contribute money to companies that treat their customer like shit.

Did you do Morrowind and Oblivion already? They're both TES games and have huge mods out there, even still active communities.

Every time you use Steam, you hurt everyone (including yourself) by reinforcing its market position.

I'm so happy that I antagonize you so rarely right now.

That is not much of a risk. It only comes across as risky if you're a paranoid loonie.

Cyprus isn't relevant. They want to sell stuff in Germany? They have to abide to German laws. Easy.

Two things:

1. You buy a game, you can download your game. If you don't do this, it isn't GOG's problem. If GOG decides to shut down your account, they don't have to give you the possibility to download your games once more. You had enough time to do so.

2. An extremely vague marketing catchphrase (it really doesn't say anything, especially since you own shit when it comes to video games) of a store doesn't override the EULA of the product's rightsholder. GOG basically says "You buy the license - it's yours" (you can't own the game), but the game's rightsholder specifies certain conditions. You can read those condition in the EULA and either accept them (Congratulations! You got a license!) or not. If you don't accept the EULA, you shouldn't buy the game. In Germany you can return a game to the store and get a refund if you don't agree to the EULA and if you couldn't read it in the store prior to opening the box (in GOG's case: prior to downloading the game).

However... "You buy it - it's yours" doesn't override that you have to agree to the EULA. And the EULA reserves the rightsholders rights to revoke your license.

Yup, I know. But there's still the EULA you have agreed to. And "Owner can revoke your license" is one of the EULA parts that's valid in Germany too (most aren't, but that one is).


"slightly" offtopic:
That's why I left Germany a decade ago ;) Not consumer rights, but other nonsense regarding the #neuland. I'm running some websites and didn't want to deal with stupid and unclear regulations. Just have a look at the "Cookie law" for a recent example xP

Oh, believe me, it takes a lot of effort to antagonize me. I generally love everybody. You just talk crap sometimes, that you call 'My opinion' (hurr durr) :-P

Ok. Are you a lawyer with experience in these matters? I'm not, so I don't see any point in arguing over it.

You are right that gOg can not revoke a license, however you are wrong in that Steam can do so - they can not. Only the rights owner can revoke a license.

The difference is in accessing the game you have the license for through their service. Both gOg and Steam can suspend that right to access, i.e. you can no longer use that service to access your game license. There is still no difference between gOg and Steam so far, and we now no longer talking about the ownership of the license, but the access to it. The difference is in the DRM, while on gOg arguably their service ends when you have downloaded the game, for many cases on Steam it do not. Games there still draw on the Steam service after they are downloaded (like it or not, but that's a different discussion...) and revoking the access means deleting it from the Steam library. The DRM free games on Steam do not need to do so (you can copy them out of Steam) and they effectively do not draw on Steams services to run, so they behave then same as the gOg games (when you move them out of the Steam folder i.e. no longer make use of Steams service. So effectively, there is no difference in the ownership of the license between those two services.
Indeed, both gOg and Steam are technically wrong when they say "buy a game", and I should not use the term also. I will keep an eye on it, so it do not happen again.

Indeed, and as you yourself say, the difference between gOg and Steam is not in the ownership of the license, but in the enforcement of it :)

If you go in with the understanding of the potential issues, then sure - buy those titles on Steam. Steam has some attractive features (to some folks, anyway) that gOg does not (yet) have, and vice versa. I'm personally going to go with the lowest level of restriction that I can find with a legal purchase, but that's me and I'm certainly not representative of a majority of the consumers. For others, the conveniences and features are more important than matters of DRM and "ownership".

And that's fine. Just know what you're buying into when you do so.

Fortunately No. They don't sell stuff in Germany - They sell it internationally. They don't even have a German version of the page. And this is a good thing. Because if by having a German page they showed that they explicitely targeted a German audience, they would fall under certain German laws (like legal protection for children and young persons). This would mean they would have to region-lock certain games or face the consquences. For instance the page could be put on the index - meaning that German Google would not display it anymore. They would have to include age checks so that games like Postal are not visible for minors. Games with Nazi symbolism are a huge problem (MoH:AA), Commandos is even banned, and so is Harvester. For this reason GOG should never have a German version of the site and never have a German dependence.

Depends on the circumstances I guess. Since they track if you download the game (for the warranty), it could be argued that at least in the 30 day they either would have to let you get the games at least once, or give a refund. But since youu probably would have to sue for it in Cyprus and I don't know the legal situation there, this is just speculation.

No. Read up on it if you like. There even where lawsuits over it where the customers won. The EULA is worth nil of you can't read it pre-purchase, even if you clicked that accept button. And especially with digitally purchased products that you can't "give back".

As for the advertising: The phrase is not vague at all. It tells me, the license can't be revoked. The publishers can prevent GOG from further distribution of the game - right. But as soon as I have it, it's mine. It's called "Erschöpfungsgrundsatz" in German law speak - I don't know how it could be translated to English.

I can imagine. I wouldn't run a website in Germany atm. Everything is set up so that you always do something wrong if someone want to find something to make your life miserable.

Sure. There's the theoretical side of it, and there's the practical application. In theory, the licensing is quite similar, if not all-but-identical. The reality, however, is the important difference between the two, and that's where we get our discussion between 'rent' and 'own'.

I'm a software developer. And DO read up a lot of this stuff because it is important for me to know.

The point why it's not really worth arguing over it is this:
Even if GOG (or a publisher on GOG) could legally revoke a license, they can't enforce it.
And even if Steam should not be able to legally revoke a license to a bought game, they can and will do it.
So what happens when your account gets banned? What happens when you buy a game in some country and then move to another country where the game is blocked by Steam?

... and this is why we don't ask about opinions of Steam on here. I mean seriously guys, put your hand bags away already.

you loose access to the game via Steams services. However, you still have the license to play the game, this is not revoked. You just cant do so via steam.

(also Steam banns in general do not remove your games, only freeze the account. Removal of games tends to only happen for games which are illegally gained)

Agreed, and that's basically what I said before. ;)

If that is the case, by German law it would entitle you to use a cracked version of the game. If you have a valid license you have to right to take measures getting the software to run.