I treat the games from GOG like I would treat any boxed game. So freely shared within close family and nowhere else. Only one of my cousins is a gamer anyway so it's not like 20 people are playing games off of me.

Thanks for the links.

My issue with those two articles is that they are concentrating to online accounts, like "can you pass your Facebook account to someone else?". It is as if those articles take it granted that "digital content" always means DRM, being locked into an online account. As if they were synonyms.

The second article makes also this argument: Well, if you buy a CD/DVD retail game, you also buy a license to use the product, nothing more. Does that mean you are not allowed to pass that license (and item) to someone else? Has GameStop and other stores buying and selling second-hand console games (licenses) been breaking the law all these years?

Somehow I feel that the writers of those articles are still struggling to make the distinction between a (software) license, and an account/service related to that software. I guess it is related to them not being able to fathom the idea that there can be digital content that is not tied to an online account. Like, DRM-free GOG game installers. Boyd did seem to point out "anything you can't download and keep locally" so I am unsure if he was talking about a license to use the digital content, or the license to use the service.

If their meaning was to ponder whether one should have the right to pass an online service to someone else, then they should be clearer that is what they are talking about. Service, not digital content. Digital content may be locked behind an online service, but that is a different (DRM) discussion.

Yeah, it is quite complicated and mostly untried area, I guess...

Well one of them says some states passed laws allowing games/other digital stuff to be transferred after death....but not at the federal level in the US, sadly.

And with UK law (and Australia i think) that you CAN resell your games/keys, sooner or later digital outlets will have to accept this and allow transferring accounts or games in part or whole to other parties...

Sure you can sell your (digital) game licenses, but the service provider isn't necessarily obliged to transfer the related services to the new user (as in, moving a GOG or Steam game from one account to another). So if the game doesn't work without the (transferred) service, oh well.

If you are selling a whole account (e.g. you GOG or Steam account), then it is more straightforward because that operation does not need any extra effort from the service provider, and even if they object the idea of the account changing the owner, they'd somehow have to try to prove that that is the case. Is the change of an email address or the name on a credit card enough to prove that?

Being as it's literally a line in a database, you only need 3 pieces of data to transfer rights.

From User
To User
Game/Item ID

This can be automated, likely requiring 2 pass autentication login where the seller specifys who to and which game.

Any other meta informtion doesn't really matter like when the game was purchased, last downloaded, etc... don't really matter.

I wasn't talking about whether it is easy or hard technically, but whether a store is obliged to allow it at all.

It will cause need for support as well, when people complain that they want their game back from someone else because they didn't receive money or a blowjob in return etc., and GOG is supposed to make up their mind which party is bullshitting them etc.

The only incentive for a store to allow that is that they'd take some fee from the game transfers, and then the publishers would want part of that money too of course. Greenmangaming.com possibly used to have something like this I think, you could sell your "used" games in the service but I don't think it ever became that big.

I can think of many many examples where doing a certain thing with your property is illegal.

If laws like that come to exist it will basically mean the end of game "ownership" concepts altogether. No company is gonna sell digital licenses to people knowing they could freely distribute them or resell them. They'd switch to subscription or always online service models so fast your head would spin.

It wouldn't surprise me if some of them weren't in bed with people in the gaming industry & being paid to push such under the guise of something positive/neutral....happens all the time in the world/in life.

I remember back when piracy was talked about constantly. When the developer of Crysis blamed piracy for disappointing sales, and companies like Epic blamed piracy for switching mostly to Xbox, and piracy was on everyone's lips. At the time the common mantra from people who were pro-piracy was "screw you, adapt to the way things are or shut up." Well, companies did adapt with a focus on "games as a service" and other such things. Now people complain about that.

The point is, they do respond and do adapt, and making laws that would allow me to do whatever I wanted with my downloaded GOG .exes would just result in no GOG .exes, basically.

I doubt it would go that far, though I agree the situation warrants people keeping a close eye on such.

But you already have licenses, though they are usually attached to physical media...

Honestly, with likely fewer than 10% wanting to sell their games, i don't see this being an issue, and games that are really crappy being sold off wouldn't be a problem either. So i don't see the problem.

But if they go full subscription, expect more torrenting... And no money at all.

Torrenting is inevitable, and hasn't stopped the endless Netflix, Disney+, etc. models from taking over video media. Games have fought piracy by making the actual services more appealing, which wouldn't change, and using DRM to delay the arrival of pirated copies, which also wouldn't change.

Only thing that changes is the business model. Instead of selling once for a flat fee and losing a lot of that fee to resale and sharing, they get a payment every month. Or in free-to-play's case, they get microtransaction payments. Either way, there's absolutely zero sign consumers would reject this considering what is happening in every other entertainment medium right now.