default set to public and/or previous user generated settings being reset for whatever reason to said defult in any tech update without proper warning or notification is a bit just that !

also, incredible the amount of folks who are praising and thanking gog for warning them through this easilly unspotted forum thread, instead of making proper frontpage news announcement

seems people were conditionned and brainwashed into thinking they are been done a favor... it really feels sad and depressing.

Really would like one big button option like "make my whole account shadowed/redacted", no country displayed, no info displayed, no subsequent (i hope) real email and/or name displayed, and of course everything in between. Like a "i'm just a customer here, leave me alone" button

Imagine a small mall with gog's current mentality about its users/customers ?

We're not family. We're not friends. We're customers. I don't mean to be rude, but I don't really see why we're to be pushed into becoming a "family". It's annoying, it's patronising.


Am I understaning this correctly, that even though all my settings are private, my "general information" will still be visable to someone visitng a "friend's" public profile if I happen to be "recently active"?

Why on earth is someone to see the number of games I own or how many hours I play just because someone else's profile is public? Do I have to delete all my "friends" now to be sure to avoid that?


Glad to see at least that.

So I upvoted all the posts around the discussion with BKGaming. I don't agree with him at all, but made his point in a friendly and non-aggressive way stating his personal feelings about the subject and so triggered a few very good answers that wouldn't be here otherwise.

Hey, people, what's with the downvoting?! This is an important discussion and I'm glad when people share their arguments even if I don't agree with them. That's what a civilized discussion is all about, is it not?

Very insightful post, and very well worded. Chapeau (++++).

Anyone who doesn't visit the forum or notice this thread is having a public profile forced on them. One of the many things you keep failing to understand is that we're not arguing just for our sake, but of the many users who are not here reading this.

It felt like that a bit before the big scam and spam wave hit... with all the downvoters and trolls (after the Witcher 3 launch). It's become better, but that "family" feeling is gone for good and won't come back even if GOG built a cozy corner into the site...

Sure, I understand that. In fact, I've already said that the best option is to have a pop-up notification regarding the issue instead of defaulting the settings to one or another.

But let's not call things names they are not. No one is "forced" to anything. If you do something just because you were unaware of another option, it does not mean you were forced to do it.

The first step to a fruitful discussion is not to overreact. Once we agree that GOG does not force anyone to do anything, we can perhaps share our ideas on what can be done by GOG to increase awareness of the possibilities.

you were nearly in the right spot... let me correct it for you, kind fellow:

Those are users profiling and users monetization (towards third parties partners) settings !

One smart person once said that "if a service is free, then it means YOU are its product"... it may had been true for a while; nowadays it shifted into "even when you pay, you still are a product anyway"

Even then, that was something organic that the community here on the forum developed on it's own and everyone participated to the degree they were comfortable with or not at all. Nothing was pushed on anyone as a default feature or PR speak.
As long as the default setting isn't changed or GOG doesn't make sure every user, not just some lucky forum members, is aware of the situation, a lot of people are effectively given no options and are having the default setting forced upon them. That's the fact of the situation. Everything else is just splitting hairs.

If that's the case, then you should be equally opposed to the idea of defaulting the settings to full privacy. Because if the settings are private by default, then "as long as GOG doesn't make sure every user, not just some lucky forum members, is aware of the situation, a lot of people are effectively given no options and are having the default settings forced upon them".

Why aren't you defending those poor users who'd want to use social features but would be FORCED not to use them by GOG defaulting the settings to privacy?

You can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either default settings (any default settings) mean forcing users to use one option, or they don't. If they do, then you should not be a proponent of defaulting the settings to privacy. If they don't, then you should not call defaulting the settings to public "forcing" users to do anything.

you forgot to emphasis on the fact this community was going toward this way organically DESPITE the clear lack of decent tols provided for it by GOG

i mean, even back in the old end-of-beta days, the forum engine was awfully clumsy, clunky, outdated and featureless, compared to whatever norm/current trend was in use at same time (i know, at that time i was installing, setting up and hosting a few phpbb forums for various mmorpg online guilds)

since then, the forum never changed, but bloated into an awful unusable mess, the non realtime private message box system was buried under a new "instant chat messaging" hideous thing that clearly couldnt completely replace private messages and such...

so, gog never provided decent tools for this community to be what it still managed to be organically before i start getting interested in it (by the end of 2015... which incidentally happened to be the beginning of the fall for it)
worse, when said spammers, scammers and downvoters appeared in waves, gog didnt provide tools or ways to deal with t (concerned community members did, though) but even managed to put new rules and environement in action that was protecting, nurturing, breeding and feeding those persons to the detriment of regular users who were made defenceless against said parasites !

True, it's something that can't forced. You can only offer the tools to make it easier for people to "settle in".
Coming from "above" this has a certain Twilight Zone/sect eerie feeling to it...

Everything off should be really the default. Then people can decide how much they want to open up - and preferably also to whom...

I just imagined some unsuspecting non-forum-active user firing up his machine with a chat message waiting like "Hey, I saw you have 234 hours in HuniePop, could you help me this thing?...". ;-)

first: putting something in TOS doesnt give it absolute law-grade strength... Some terms in a service can be viewed as either abusive and.or illegal/uncomplying regarding EU, customer/user's country and maybe gog's new HQ's place country (but im not familiar with it)
like agreeing on surrendering your first born (extreme absurd example) or "as long as you are using the service, you must comply into notifying us whenever you plan to go outside of your home, stating the intended destination, and waiting for us to approve it"... and if you dont, then just stop using our services"

second: define gog's services in this one ? does it include the mere action of purchasing and checking out, with keeping track of invoices/purchases ? or does it mean the forum, the optional client and its features (like cloud save, multiplayer's matchmaking and such) which in case ARE services and that are clearly depending on such kind of TOS and that everyone using them need to be on equal footing ground for thelm to work...

because in the later case, it's like a grocery store that would claim that it hinders it or makes it impossible to properly work (as in: letting you grab things and checking out with your cart) without, for example, shouting out the customer's name, adress and relative's names whenever said customer arrive at the checkout line.

so, basically, what you are saying is that if we dont agree to have our personal info displayed publicly, we shoudl forfeit our entire account's purchases (and games ownership licences too); because just having an offline installer on your disk doesnt mean you have the legal right of use for said game. (a proof of purchase, though...) and i wont even mention the right to access to technical fix/updates to defective products (i wouldnt call that a "service" but an entitled right... not in GOG'sTOS, mind you.. it's in various consumers laws)

Thanks for the warning ... uh announcement.

Good thing I actually took a look at the forum though, disabling everything by default might indeed be an option to consider, not that it matters to me anymore now. Yet the very thought that my activities, whatever those are, would have been public by default annoys me quite a bit even though I doubt anyone would have taken a look.

a middle ground would be putting everything to private by default but also clearly stating (in popups) in, for example, the galaxy client, that for x or y feature (such as multiplayer online or such) to work, it will switch the related setting back to public, for obvious reasons

as long as you dont need said features, then, the related settings wouldnt need to turn themselves on again...


anyway, again, to rebound on the article of TOS that bkgaming mentioned: how exactly does GOG plan o enforce that everyone is playing under the new rules/terms so that they generate the said activity and user-related data they need for them to keep on working properly ?

i mean, some of those clearly are tied to website's functionalities, but some also are tied to galaxy features.
which probably means they willl NEED and thus ENFORCE that everyone can be profiled, everyone can be data-harvested as individuals, so that they keep their services working.
So, probably, we will be required to have a piece of software running in the background to track activity, and such... and games wouldnt launch if we dont have said software installed and running.

oh wait... that is not very "optional" now, this rather sound pretty much like DRM to me !