This is equally true for almost any game ever sold, including physical ones. You only ever own a license that specifies what you can and cannot do with the game. The difference is in what this license is tied to, for example either a physical copy of a given game or an account that can be remotely deactivated taking away all your games. In GOG’s case once you grab the installer, the game license cannot be easily forcibly revoked, just as with the physical copy.
Thanks for saying this.
With recent campaigns and rants against digital media, people often claim that “you own the game if you buy a physical copy”. That always makes me sigh, because it’s false.
Not saying there are some advantages for some use cases, but I dislike hyperbole and untruths.
That’s just semantics.
When you buy a CD, you don’t own the songs.
But you do have some item that belongs to you.
With Steam, you have a ticket that will let you into Steam to download the game for as long as your account is in good standing and as long as Steam exists.
With GOG, you have a file you can use to install the game on any machine INDEFINITELY. GOG can’t revoke your access for any reason, and if GOG shuts down, you can still install the games.
I have plenty drm free games in steam where I copied the game folder into other computers and it ran offline. At that point, there’s no difference between an installer and a compressed copy of that game. For reference, Grim dawn but there’s plenty more.
“Installing” is just semantics for decompressing a file in specific folders, you can the collect that data and “install” the game wherever. As long as you can run the game without steam, it doesn’t matter that you used steam to buy it.
The difference with physical is that you own the physical medium the license is stored on and are permitted to sell the physical medium with the license. With digital downloads you are not allowed to sell a drive with the files. Since you are technically making a copy.
The worth of a gog game secondhand is 0 though. Theres nothing to be made there.
People do sell accounts though.
Isn’t there a clause in baldur’s gate 3 terms that lets you transfer the game license once to a friend or something along those lines?
Not sure how that works but it’d be cool if we can have that apply for all of them (digitally) maybe like 3 times over the lifetime of the licensed game.
It doesn’t really matter because it doesn’t change the point that people think they own digital goods when they don’t. GOG may have a more consumer friendly system in place but it doesn’t change what has happened with people’s music, movies, shows, games and music in games at these digital storefronts, where people have clicked “Buy X” and later on, it’s no longer in their libraries anymore. This has happened even when the business still exists and is still providing digital goods.
With GOG, you can buy any game, and you’ll have files to keep. Once you have the installer, you can keep that forever.
Even if your GOG account is hacked, banned, and GOG goes out of business, you can forever install your game onto any compatible machine, even offline, and play the game.
That’s what GOG does differently.
It’s like buying a physical game, except there’s no disc. They can’t revoke your access or deactivate your ability to play the game.
I know that. That still misses the point. The point of the law is to clarify that on digital storefronts that you make purchases for licensed digital goods, that you can’t imply to the consumer that they actually own those goods. It doesn’t matter if there is an offline installer. It doesn’t matter if you can ‘keep your installers forever’.