Fair warning to whom? Me? For what? For your "since you're not willing to tell me what I want via PM, I will post publicly whatever I find"? Eh... no, sorry. Whatever you do, it's your doing and your doing alone, don't try to put it on me.


Are you saying that the NDA you (plural) signed explicitly states that you are now GOG partners? With any and all legal rights and obligations that said partnership entails?

And I'm not sure I understand how section 8, be it the Privacy Policy or the User Agreement, is relevant in the context of you now being GOG partners.


Now this is getting interesting. At the time this event was planned, was it made clear to everyone that received an invitation that those who attend will become GOG partners, thus have access rights to info pertaining to GOG customers? And those that didn't just had to accept it?

I see the type of partners GOG mentions in their User Agreement, and they're all, in one way or another, needed to run their business. What need do you (plural) cover as GOG partners?


This sounds like you do have access to other details pertaining to GOG customers besides usernames...

Let's put it this way...if GoG were to share e-mails or chat correspondence with "users merely declared partners in an NDA" who had no real reason to have access to them, it would be a breach of privacy and that clause in the user agreement would not protect them. If you were to use that information nefariously, both you and GoG would be sued. That is the nature of agreements of this type. Same applies to your apartment lease agreements. It allows them some leeway over reasonable use but it doesn't 100% protect them from everything just because it is worded in a very broad manner.

The point is that GoG ought to be very careful about discussing specific users with other users (NDAs notwithstanding). If anyone is upset over such a reveal, they shouldn't be getting marginalized over it. If they feel their privacy has been breached by names being named, then it has. Yet, post after post seems to be defending what seems to me to be a rather questionable information reveal.

I explained my position. You are the one who trying really hard not to get it. But hey, be a condescending asshole by claiming I'm just ranting with no point. You can stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

No, I wouldn't be suspicious at all. I would think that the conference is acting in a very business-like manner. Funny thing is that once upon a time, I worked on a convention committee who invited celebrity guests. We were not supposed to discuss details about those who were invited and declined. We definitely didn't discuss that with other guests...

It's the same thing with GoG and indie game developers. GoG doesn't generally discuss as public knowledge which games they are seeking and which games have been rejected. Because it's poor business etiquette. The same should apply to users invited and not attending such an event.

Late to the party.
Worthy initiative from GOG managment.
Thank you.

I ve read only the OP, but I wonder if the initiative aimed to something over this very reassuring post.

Myself, even if sometimes let down by some strategy choices, thinks that GOG is far superior to Steam and such.

For some reason, you seem unwilling to have said posts highlighted. I would be looking for them to satisfy my own curiosity, since I highly doubt any individual could be identified by those, but I would be posting them for the curiosity of others as well, who might be able to jump to better conclusions. So while I would be willing to let others do the legwork and present their findings as they see fit, I would be posting my findings.
Didn't get around to it, so no public posting.

Yes. Partner is exactly what we are called.

As covered by said NDA.

Certain data may be divulged to GOG partners. User names and correspondence can be part of said data.

No idea. From what we talked about between ourselves, the emails were personalized. I was warned we would be getting some "pretty secret and sensitive information", but no idea what the others were told.

Again, no idea. Best guess would be "community feedback", but that is personal opinion, not GOG's.

Love the logical jump. Our NDAs mean that GOG can share stuff with us. RWarehall's email account is not something GOG has access to, but fables22 email is, so we could (hypothetically) get stuff from their email account. As far as I know, we haven't gotten any, but that is not the same as "access to other details pertaining to GOG customers besides usernames".
I agree. Which is exactly why we haven't mentioned any nicknames. I've no idea whether they feel marginalized or not, or whether the other invitees that couldn't attend feel their privacy had been violated, but I do think that the policies one agrees to when making a GOG account (or skips over) cover GOG's decision.
Had exactly the opposite experience back when I was helping with the TCM/TCO conferences. Could be that the circle there is a bit smaller, but we did discuss about those who couldn't make it.

a) You didn't explain even though I asked you to (meaning I WANTED to get it). You only said it is wrong because it is wrong and not good business practice.
b) Calling me names only tells me what kind of person you are and that I am probably unable to talk to you on a reasonable level.
c) Just wantedt to add that because like I said - I am out - now for good. Don't even bother to reply because I won't anymore. So sad to see that even in this great community there are still people who are thinking that insults would solve anything. But I highly doubt that you even understand what I am trying to tell you - maybe one day when you have grown up a bit you will....

In our case, we had money to comp maybe 5 guests and had room for up to maybe 10 who would get billing/space but were coming on their own dime. So it was important not to talk about who rejected us, who didn't get an invite, etc. especially setting up for future years as it was important not to alienate anyone. If someone agreed to come and cancelled, that needed to be discussed in vague terms.

It's different when you have 100's if not 1000's of potential guests and have to select a few to fit your size and space. A lot more similar to this situation. By the sound of it, your conferences were essentially open to anyone who could make it?
Learn to read!!! I've explained it in many ways and here you go repeating I didn't. You are the one accusing me of just ranting. Of course you don't find your own posts insulting. Seriously, you need to get a life. It tells me exactly what kind of person YOU are! You one of those Internet jerks who just can't be wrong about anything. You aren't even trying to discuss it.

I don't understand what the big debate is over legal semantics.

those guys are partners to gog and business for liability purposes, as declared within the scope of that NDA. they're not partners to GOG the business. Destro isn't emailing this week's numbers to JMich for example. it's really stretching it to think that there is an information highway between the mag6 and gog now. they might be asked out again someday to give feedback on something. they might be shortlisted for betas or things. that's about it.

Invited speakers would have had their travelling and hotel expenses covered. Rest of speakers and attendees wouldn't. Non-invitees would also have to pay the conference fee.
But again, that circle is relatively small. So out of ~1000 people, 700 would be there and there would be questions asked (and answered) about the other 300. It has been quite some time since I last was part of one such conference, so do take the numbers with a grain of salt. They were though in the few hundreds to several hundreds attendees, and 30 to 50 invited speakers per conference. I could try to dig up a timetable to verify if you want to, but I've no idea whether I've kept any or not.
There were (obviously) a lot of students though, mostly with posters.

At least for us, we had a policy not to discuss for a number of reasons:

1) Minimize alienation of future guests who after hearing some of the invited names, think they should have been invited instead. (Granted it's still possible they think they should have been invited over a main guest, but we should handle that discussion privately). I left out that we did comp the admission of our secondary featured panelists even if transportation and lodging was on their own dime. Let's just say there were enough people that "think" they should be comped, it was better left unclear who specifically was and wasn't comped.

2) Minimize "backseat driving" from attendees. It's kinda like GoG now in terms of the people advocating for their favorite marginal indie game to make the store. Many "fans" can be rather vocal over their favorites. So we found it better that such decisions and results were not public knowledge. For all anyone else needs to know, we invited them and they declined.

But again this policy only applied to those given special benefits. I wouldn't be surprised if some of our registration people might have been chatty about normal attendees and why they weren't there. But just think about it here. How reckless would it be if the full list of invitees were public and people were discussing who should and shouldn't have been invited. What sort of mess that would be. This is why you never should have been given names and why GoG shouldn't confirm nor deny any claims. The public doesn't need to know, and even those users who were invited have no reason to need to know.

While similar, that is actually a different set of circumstances. You've already listed all the very sensible reasons why you wouldn't want panelists to know who else may or may not have been invited (no one wants to know they were your second choice). I was thinking more of a group of equals (which this meeting would have been) in which case there is no reason I can see to need to withhold that information from other attendees (as would be the case in your example).

I think that may be slightly the issue here too, as far as I am aware (and certainly nothing JMich or anyone else has said leads me to believe) no one declined GOG's invite. No one rejected the idea. We sent apologies to say we could not make it.
If I were to have said "I refuse to attend on principle because of X, Y and Z" then I can see that information might be something that should be kept private, but I don't see that anyone did that or was told if anyone did that.
Sending apologies is an act that is meant to be shared with the other members of the group involved, whether we knew who they were or not. That's how I see it anyway.

It's not that different...anyone who wasn't invited was rejected and hence might consider themselves less equal. Those who declined may have reasons not to want to be considered part of the "elite" group. Thus, some forum users are clearly "more equal" than the rest of the forum. And of course, no one outright declined an all-expense paid free trip...

It would have been best if no names were mentioned at all, just that others were invited and didn't make it. Instead the mentioning of names to the group that went gave some of them the opportunity to accidentally drop hints about who are the forum's elite forumites according to GoG including those who didn't go.

But we're not talking about telling people who were not part of the chosen group. Only other people who were invited were told anything by GOG, what you are talking about is to take issue with publicly sharing the information at all (which was not done by GOG, and no names were mentioned). And while I can certainly see why people might be upset to not have been chosen I think sharing what was learnt and that the even occurred at all is more important then saving those peoples feelings.

Sorry, but that's just clutching at straws.

But of course we are talking about telling people who were not part of the chosen group. That is the entire discussion. As the GoG A-List has been hinted at and revealed throughout the whole thread. That is exactly what HSL took offense at. Both that GoG would reveal those who declined at all, and the fact that those people are being hinted at. That ordinary users given a special invite are now privy to private conversations involving other users. GoG should have realised that it was a bad idea mentioning names like that to the chosen group because they wouldn't be responsible enough not to blab.