That's definitely something to be concerned with. But by the same token, it's pretty clear to anybody without a JD that the system is set up the encourage that sort of psychopathic behavior from corporations. The notion that any of those agreements are considered valid when the party writing the contract doesn't pay for a legal consultation is just astonishing.

The reason why I brought up banks is because in the modern age one has little choice but to sign the agreement, it's getting so that you can't even get a job if you don't have an account. Plus, the regularly change the terms with little warning knowing that many customers don't have any choice but to agree to the changes.

Thanks to EA's online activation I have missed games that I would otherwise have bought instantly. They are also infamous for rushing games and then laying of the developers.

So instead of paranoid suspicion for the dubious purposes for the added EULA, I just have a low opinion on EA to begin with and would like an official statement from GOG explaining why it was necessary to add this extra EULA before I choose to buy these upcoming 25+ games that I more than likely already have.

For the new games, you could *cough* install & find "alternate" executables *cough*

I was not going to answer you, but since you keep repeating the same argument I'll have to.

My proof is that EA recognize in the EULA, which is a declaration of intentions ("we may do this, and you'll have to accept it"), that they have an intention to spy on us and force customers to use their servers for the online. I have also proved to you that EA is not trustworthy due to past scandals. Once the intention exists I ask myself, is it technically possible? I have discussed this and I have come to the conclusion that it is possible, even in a DRM-free system if definitions are interpreted in EA's favor. Not only I think it is possible, I put examples of companies that are reprogramming old games to work this way.

I'M PROVING THAT IT IS DOABLE AND THAT THERE IS AN INTENTION. I'm not saying AT ALL that EA is doing it, I'm just saying they have expressed intention and that the technical means are there and, therefore, I ask gog whether or not EA is going to actually do it for any present or future gog release and I'm making the gog community aware of the danger.

Am I being enough clear to you?

There is a common argument in many of the answers I see here that don't apply at all to the two clauses I refer to.

When an EULA has a clause saying "you have bought a license and, therefore, we can revoke your access to the software any moment", everybody laughs at it and say "no judge would allow them to do so" (as if it would have never happened). But the clauses I was speaking of are not a distant possibility that we all are "sure" will never happen. The clauses I refer to speak of something that publisher do all the time. If a company says "we can spy on you", I'm not going to wait for a distant future in which a scandal breaks and a judge saves us all because the EULA was not valid, I'm just going to ask the publisher/distributor "are you going to do it or not?, because of your answer depends whether I buy the game or not".

So, it's not a question of validity of the EULA.

They legally can't enforce stuff that's unapplicable to that title later on if it isn't applicable currently......that's possibly false advertising/fraud/etc.

Also there's telling people of a potential security/etc problem and yelling fire in a crowded theatre, which is akin to what you are doing now. You are not offering proof that they'll or can do these things later on to our games just repeating the same fear filled opinions over and over again.

I promise you, as a fellow gogger, that according to what I said above and what I know about gog i'm 100% certain that they'll never allow such clauses to take effect or such features to be put in any gog game.

1. Oh yes, I know that I am very susceptible to reading much into everything. Somehow that's how I am. Can't change it.

2. Come on. Shouldn't be too expensive to mark some paragraphs and press delete. They probably have lawyers that are paid regardless of what they do. So they could do something good for a change.

3. If you look at the history of customer protection you'll see that's mostly the guys who read too much into anything that push the matter forward and mostly it's for the benefit for all. Customer protection improves the quality of products: Having a guarantee (two years standard) protects against low quality, having the right to send products back enables testing, no fees for opening or closing an account enables competition, protecting the consumers data protects their privacy and on and on...

Don't want to say that this matter is overly important, but I see a general value in acting consumer friendly and e.g. protecting the privacy of customers. So I say, EA can clearly improve in this category.

1. Just like me and some of my faults, I guess. Do you find it more a blessing or a curse, if I may ask?

2. Read above for actual dev/lawyer aide comments about how lengthy and complex it can be & how having differing EULAs for every game for every port for a company is a logistics nightmare.

3. I agree...it's just they do research into these things and have experience....i'd rather let them do the rsearch and i'll look into it first before basing my decisions...rather than just worry over something needlessly beforehand.

4. Yes but if all they were doing is throwing a copypasta EULA on the games and not any drm & that means we can have their games isn't that a good thing for everyone involved?

It's definitely both, blessing and curse. You normally don't get any praise for it, but I am also not unhappy about it. I just need to stop myself from time to time.

You're probably right that the matter is more complex than just a few clicks. But the right to collect usage data as much as they want is bad under any circumstances. There should be something like: We will ask you everytime we collect something and will only do so with your explicit consent which is purely optional. That would be nice.

This would make the EA games even better coming here to GOG for anyone involved. It's kind of tolerable as it is, but it can be better. Or to make it short from a general point of view that certainly does not apply here: If we give in to everything we will end with nothing. That's why customer protection is always a good thing.

I don't want to overstress it here, because this matter isn't that important after all, but I don't believe that we get this EULA because EA just cannot manage to make a special EULA or make the general EULA better but because they also don't want and think that we are buying anyway. They are probably right.

1. I wish we could have it that way, but let me ask you this hypothetical...if you ran EA and wanted to sell to Gog for some reason, would you waste money making a specific EULA for each game being released & for every DD site the games are sold on? Or just draft a catch all version?

I think they could've listed in another section which clauses affected which years/genres of their titles to make it more clear, but again as it's pretty much useless to them(in some ways) we're in the clear luckily.

It is a good thing, but you only haver so much time and resources...you have to pick and choose the battles which are most important right?

Agreed.

BTW did you get any games yet? Or what do you think they'll release?

They don't waste much money by changing their policy and making better EULAs. And pissing of customers too often is also a potential loss of money.

If I would run EA I would strive to be the most customer friendly company out there, with the goal to become market leader in every category, even in the soft categories of customer service and customer protection. I would justify this by saying that happy customers are spending more and come back more often.

That's what I would do. I guess there is a reason why I'm not running EA. :)

Didn't buy any games yet. Not enough time. But Wing Commander and Alpha Centauri and whatever else is interesting will probably be bought.

It's more the time spent sending it between departments for approval and edits before all departments agree on it and legal approves it.

You sound like my kinda CEO...I wish more were like you running the gaming industry

I wish you were, to be honest.

Cool...tell me how they play if you ever get them ok?

Thanks for the compliment man. Sure I will. :)