Well, it works. It's something like activation limit was reached, go fuck yourself"


SLP2000 thanks for explaining in easy words what I couldn't. And in this case, every one-use CD key or online passes are breaking the law in Poland. Unfortunatelly, there is no any cases background to study the issue further.

And how do you present your evidence, given that you have pretty much nothing in your hand and everything relevant is on their servers. can you prove you dint share your account with twenty other people, that you cheated on games in your collection, that you violated forum etiquette?
Most persons wont file a private lawsuit against a company either, even if they are in the right. Question of deep pockets

I noticed this bit in the article: With Steam it's more like you buy games and they say "Oh no, we'll keep hold of them for you. Don't worry though, we'll give you a way to get here really quickly from any computer so it's fine!" and you think it's really convenient until the day they suspect you of shoplifting and won't let you into the shop. Only then do you realise that it really fucking stupid to buy your games from a shop that retains the right to decide whether you can or can't play your games.


------ Yes, but GOG deleting your account would simply remove your ability to download the games from them. I don't see how it would revoke the invisible license permanently attached to you.

Really? how large aka huge your hard drive is? I would like a bit faster and more well bigger thing than this 160 gb drive. I didn't remember that even fear 2 wastes 15 gigs.
I just hate that steam games must be in same hard drive.

indeed. Doesn't mean it is legal (and i doubt it is. the go fuck yourself part. if you can reactivate it then there is no problem)
and it doesn't mean it is illegal too.
Currently law needs to catch up to tech.

at least thats what i heard/read

I guess you can legally crack a game when activation limit is reached, lukaszthegreat since activation limits are rather voidable in Poland

activation limits are legal only if they prevent you from using a game/app on multiple PC's at the same time.

if you haven't backed up the installer files yourself, and your account gets locked down, you're out of luck. you've permanently lost your licence(s). so this is very well possible with GoG.

i have a 640GB external drive for back-ups, and let me tell you i cannot fit my entire Steam folder onto it...

size has become a problem. i have several Steam games that are 20GB or more in size. they are a pain to back up. with games this large, i tend to purchase phyiscal copies so i have the data (minus patches and DLC, of course) on DVD.

but theoretically, you could back up your entire Steam folder and restore it by copying it back. of course, over a USB2.0 connection it takes forever. eSATA would be the better solution.

You can give that game to your friend, and then he can give it back to you. You are not allowed to borrow, but you can give / sell him that game.

As I said: you've lost the ability to download them, not the licence. You're confusing ability and legal right.

Nice workaround, but you couldn't force him to give it back to you, if you gave it to him, not borrowed.

But you are supposed to download your copy and back it up. GOG could have no accounts at all, and they still could provide the service.

If it's not explicitily allowed none of that falls into a legitimate use of the copy you bought.

You own the copy you bought if when you go about using that copy in a legitimate way and you're faced with no hoops to jump through. Do i onw my gog games ? Yes, the worst that could happen would be loosing the ability to redownload them if gog went tits up, but i could go on forever using the copies of the games i bought here. Do i onw my steam games ? No, not rally, there's a whole set of ocurrences that can lock me out or prevent the use of my steam account and every purchase tied to it even when i'm simply trying to use my purchased copies in a legitimate way.

I would guess that, also in Poland, those workarounds are illegal. In Germany we call something like this "circumventiondeal" and is "illegal" as in, the orignial proceeding is imagined.

Btw, I hate translating legal lingo ....

indeed, now i see what you mean. i guess you're right unless getting your GoG account terminated equals loss of your licences.

at any rate, you lose your GoG games if your account is closed and you haven't backed up your games. i doubt it would comfort you to know that you still legally own the licence to play your lost games...

i don't agree. GoG is an account-based service offering unlimited re-downloads. theoretically, it should not be necessary to keep back-ups. i'd guess that most people don't even have the storage space to keep back-ups of all their digital copies unless you have really large HDDs or very few games.

of course, being sane and having the storage space, i back up everything: Steam, GamersGate, GoG. i've run out of back-up space now, though...