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General discussionUPDATE: Introducing GOG Profiles(2385 posts)(2385 posts)
(2385 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 30, 2018
Activity Feed • Gameplay Stats • Personalization


UPDATE: We've added a new option to the Privacy settings in GOG Profiles - from now on you can turn off your profile on GOG entirely, so no one can see any kind of information that is shown on the profile page. This also means that when you turn off your profile, you won’t be visible on your friends’ friends lists, even if they decide to keep their profiles visible.
The option to enable/disable your GOG Profile can be found in your account „Privacy & Settings” options, under „Privacy” tab.



We just introduced a new feature on GOG.COM: User Profiles – a social way to share what you and your friends are up to. See what your friends on GOG are playing, achieving, and sharing across four sections – Feed, Profile, Games and Friends.

Your Feed is the centerpiece of your Profile. Here, you’ll see which games your friends have been playing, all sorts of achievements and milestones, as well as general thoughts, screenshots, and forum activity. You can dispense your approval at whim and share your own stuff as well!

Your Profile is all about you and your gaming accomplishments. It's a summary of your activity, like the time you've spent in your games , your latest achievements (and just how rare they are among other users), as well as a glimpse at what your most active friends have been up to.

If you want to know more about your Games, you need to hit the the third tab. It contains a list of all the games you own on GOG, together with stats like time spent in-game and your progress towards unlocking the achievements. Sort the list, compare stats with your friends, and get some healthy competition going.

Finally – your Friends: get a general summary of their achievements and hours played. Here you'll also see which games are the most popular among your friends right now, so you can join them in multiplayer or find something you might enjoy yourself.

Of course, your profile comes with some sweet personalization options, choose a wallpaper from your game collection and share a few words with the world.

User Profiles are available for all GOG.COM users. Your personal gameplay stats like achievements, time played and milestones depend on GOG Galaxy, but if you’re not using the optional client you can still use the feed, post in it and interact with your friends.

Launching profiles also means adding new privacy settings on our end. You'll find three new Privacy options in your account's „Privacy & settings” area. These settings allow you to set the visibility for your profile summary, your games, your friends, etc.
So what are you waiting for? There's so much room for activities!
Posted April 28, 2018
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BKGaming: As far as total accounts we know GOG has close to 700K from this video, because that's how many people played the Witcher 3 via Galaxy after release. Considering it has been a top seller on GOG we can safely assume they probably got a lot more accounts after that.

I would say a good estimate of 1 to 2 million total accounts would be a good bet. Active accounts would of course be a lot lower. Probably around 300,000 if I had to guess (active being those who check the store or buy or play a game regularly or log into Galaxy on a daily/weekly/monthly basis).
Actually I've heard the number of 2M float around last year somewhere... But that's probably total. Active I would guess about 0.5 to 1M... but with 300k we here in the forums knowing each other by first names by now are a tiny fraction I guess. Most people just want to shop. Just like a tiny fraction of the millions (billion?) of Amazon users write reviews and stuff.
That's not to say we're unimportant. The silent majority brings the money, right. The vocal, outspoken people bring (or keep away) the "consumer sheep". That's why it's important to keep those people happy - they're gonna tell everyone... That's why Twitch and Facebook and stuff - multipliers...
Posted April 28, 2018
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Gersen: Honestly I am pretty sure that Gog are currently working on adding new privacy options and are just waiting for them to be ready to announce them. [...]
Not to burst your bubble, but if they've build the page on something like PHP and do the quickest version (Enable Profile: Yes/No), that's about 3 lines of additional code on the profile page, an additional byte value in the user database and a flag in the privacy settings. We already know that there's not much testing involved before they update the site, so it would be a job for a single person on a very lazy morning.

GOG implemented this update the way they did fully aware that this was the most user-unfriendly way to do it. Force everyone out into the open - especially the inactive accounts. For GOG this wasn't about fulfilling a 6 year old community wish. Probably all that mattered to them was to get the metrics out there for data-collectors like "social" networks, market researchers/advertisers and SteamSpy. (Or GOGspy, rather.)
Post edited April 28, 2018 by HeartsAndRainbows
Posted April 28, 2018
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HeartsAndRainbows: Not to burst your bubble, but if they've build the page on something like PHP and do the quickest version (Enable Profile: Yes/No), that's about 3 lines of additional code on the profile page, an additional byte value in the user database and a flag in the privacy settings. We already know that there's not much testing involved before they update the site, so it would be a job for a single person on a very lazy morning.

GOG implemented this update the way they did fully aware that this was the most user-unfriendly way to do it. Force everyone out into the open - especially the inactive accounts. For GOG this wasn't about fulfilling a 6 year old community wish. Probably all that mattered to them was to get the metrics out there for data-collectors like "social" networks, market researchers/advertisers and SteamSpy. (Or GOGspy, rather.)
Does not make sense.
Yeah... fixing it takes three lines of code... agreed. But...

They already have the data. If they want to give it to their "trusted partners" - they can.

The profile pages are simply a view on the data that is already there. It really makes no sense to expose them publicly like that. It pisses many people off and is probably against the law.

I say it again: The profile pages don't COLLECT data. They show (and probably only a fraction) what is already there. And most people here would probably fine with the "have"... but really not with the "show". It's like your apartment door was suddenly made of glass, and you can't do anything about it.
Posted April 28, 2018
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Vainamoinen: You can make the higher ups see reason without compiling boycott lists.
Care to share how to achieve this (the bolded part)?

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Vainamoinen: If your arguments aren't strong enough to instigate an actual discussion of the morals, don't sound the war drums, make your argument better.
(Note that I am potentially responding out of context here.)
I dont agree with your perspective. What you basically promote is begging GOG to change their ways. I believe GOG screwed up majorly here I have a (legal and ethical) right to demand that they fix it.
You are also implying that GOG has "morals". From my POV: There is strong evidence that they are either severly lacking in morals or that theirs are not properly compatible with mine. I would consider making profiles completely private as the default "obvious courtesy" towards customers even without laws and privacy policy.
(Note that I am potentially responding out of context here.)
Posted April 28, 2018
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Heh, just signed up to GoFundMe so I could make a contribution and.. my profile is private by default :)
Posted April 28, 2018
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HeartsAndRainbows: [Yadda-yadda-yadda...]
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toxicTom: Does not make sense. [...]

They already have the data. If they want to give it to their "trusted partners" - they can.

The profile pages are simply a view on the data that is already there. It really makes no sense to expose them publicly like that. It pisses many people off and is probably against the law.

I say it again: The profile pages don't COLLECT data. They show (and probably only a fraction) what is already there. And most people here would probably fine with the "have"... but really not with the "show". It's like your apartment door was suddenly made of glass, and you can't do anything about it.
Maybe you're right. I was pretty much already tired when I logged in today. Because thinking about GOG makes me feel tired nowadays - funny how that works...

Anyway, I'll give that thought a fresh read tomorrow. My original thought was that they maybe used that update as a pretense in order to share certain information that they otherwise would not have been allowed to share with a third party - especially after GDPR - and that having that data out in the open already would create a legal loophole of sort for them.
Again: Maybe I'm just too tired...
Posted April 28, 2018
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Vainamoinen: A reaction elicited because GOG fears losing tons of customers, what's that worth? Also nothing...

Right at the bottom of it, GOG needs to regain customer trust. If you clearly 'forced' them to do anything, that's just not going to happen, because no one would believe the words that finally were spoken.

If your arguments aren't strong enough to instigate an actual discussion of the morals, don't sound the war drums, make your argument better. Threads like this one are doing a fine job keeping the topic relevant.

They must not, at all costs not, turn into organizing harassment.
I have to disagree because that looks to me to be the best-case scenario.
Posted April 28, 2018
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xyem: Does trying to get this discussion out into the wider world (e.g. youtube, news outlets, blogs) constitute harrassment?
As dirty as self-promotion makes me feel, I wrote a thing and put it up on one of the aggregators where it's waiting for approval. Not sure what its chances are of getting onto the front page, but any engagement/votes there might boost its chances.

(Also interested in fact checking, proofreading, etc.)
Posted April 28, 2018
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xyem: Does trying to get this discussion out into the wider world (e.g. youtube, news outlets, blogs) constitute harrassment?
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227: As dirty as self-promotion makes me feel, I wrote a thing and put it up on one of the aggregators where it's waiting for approval. Not sure what its chances are of getting onto the front page, but any engagement/votes there might boost its chances.
Can't see it without logging in, it seems.
Posted April 28, 2018
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xyem: Can't see it without logging in, it seems.
Oh, right. Here's a direct link.
Posted April 28, 2018
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xyem: Can't see it without logging in, it seems.
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227: Oh, right. Here's a direct link.
Nice article.

It doesn't look[1] like you mentioned that GOG haven't emailed all its users that they need to review their privacy options though, which I think is an important point to cover. Your article makes it sound like they should know from the offical announcement, but that was only on the website.

EDIT: [1] As in, I read it, but it is 01:15 so I may have missed it :)
Post edited April 28, 2018 by xyem
Posted April 28, 2018
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Vainamoinen: You can make yourself heard without pestering people. You can make the higher ups see reason without compiling boycott lists. This is not about winning a stupid game of harassment. And it actually can't be.
A boycott list is not harassment. Let's not be ridiculous here. Like you yourself say, it's a moral issue. At least for us. On those grounds I decided not to buy from GOG again, untill the situation improves. If someone makes a list of all the people who made that decision it's not harassment, It's simply means of communicating to GOG how many people see this as an issue important enough to stop using GOG over it. And it makes that point far more clearly than just complaining, which people always do when something changes.

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Vainamoinen: A reaction elicited because GOG fears losing tons of customers, what's that worth? Also nothing.

Right at the bottom of it, GOG needs to regain customer trust. If you clearly 'forced' them to do anything, that's just not going to happen, because no one would believe the words that finally were spoken.
I disagree. We're never going to convince GOG, or any other company, to do anything because it's right. Companies don't have morals, they have shareholders. I'm not saying end justify any means, I'm not saying peopl should be harassed. But GOG fearing losing profit over customers leaving or their tarnished image is literally the only thing that might possibly work. It's utterly naive to believe GOG will have some moral awakening. Now there's something I would never trust. But a company caring about their business - that I can trust.

Our only relationship with GOG if a business one. Only in those terms can we really communicate.

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Vainamoinen: If your arguments aren't strong enough to instigate an actual discussion of the morals, don't sound the war drums, make your argument better. Threads like this one are doing a fine job keeping the topic relevant.
Our goal is not to have a academic discussion about morals. Our goal is not to keep the topic relevant. Our goal is to have GOG stop infringing user privacy. We're not going to achieve that by having the moral high ground. If that were the case this would be over days ago.

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Vainamoinen: They must not, at all costs not, turn into organizing harassment.
That I absolutely agree with.
Post edited April 28, 2018 by Breja
Posted April 28, 2018
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HeartsAndRainbows: Someone stated a few pages back that GOG had like 500,000 users.
Source:

"As of 9 June 2015, GOG.com had seen 690,000 units of CD Projekt Red's game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt redeemed through the service, more than the second largest digital seller Steam (approx. 580,000 units and all other PC digital distribution services combined."

That was 3 years ago.
Posted April 28, 2018
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xyem: It doesn't look[1] like you mentioned that GOG haven't emailed all its users that they need to review their privacy options though, which I think is an important point to cover. Your article makes it sound like they should know from the offical announcement, but that was only on the website.
Thanks; the lack of an email was implied toward the end, but I added in some extra information to make that point more clear.
Posted April 28, 2018
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tfishell: Somebody should summarize this and post it to r/games. I'm surprised the hubbub hasn't made it into gaming news yet; I guess it's pretty damn minor compared to other gaming news.
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Breja: Actually it did make it to a few websites.

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/04/gog-com-introduces-user-profiles-spawns-major-privacy-issues/57130/

https://www.cnet.com/news/gog-debuts-profiles-feature-users-flip-out/

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/04/23/gog-adds-user-profiles/
Ah, fair enough.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionUPDATE: Introducing GOG Profiles(2385 posts)(2385 posts)
(2385 posts)