My question is this. Is it possible and acceptable to family share the account within the same household.

ex.. Steam lets you share games with different accounts but only one person can use the games on any given account at a time.

But what i want to know is it ok to use just one account to buy games and then install what ever we want on our systems within the same house hold and then play them. (So 1 account but 2 systems with NWN1 and 2 players at the same time)

Please refer to item #9 on the Website FAQ for official GOG.com statement on household installations.

Pseudoman answered your question but regarding NWN1 and 2 there may be a small problem if you want to play multiplayer since these games require you to have different keys. I am not 100% sure since I never played NWN games multiplayer on LAN.

Ofcourse you can do this. Request a Key for NWN1 (for NWN2 Keys come with the account). Then use default keys on one computer and use your own unique keys for the other. You dont have to do anything for using default keys but for unique keys you have to use a program.

Not really, installing a game on multiple computers isn't the same as playing it on said machines by different people at the same time.

E:
I'm on "nobody should really care what you're doing with your games within your household" side, but FAQ isn't clear about this.

Basically, the FAQ says yes, it's fine for you to share the account within your household. As long as it's within your household there's no limit to the number of computers you can install the games onto, or the number of people who can play at the same time. Just remember not to distribute the games to people outside your household, because that would be copyright infringement.

There might be some practical limitations in certain circumstances though. For example, with some games (Unreal Tournament 2004 comes to mind you get a product key, and servers have the option of not letting two clients connect at the same time if they share a key, although with UT2004 you can simply start your own server and switch that "feature" off. I believe NWN2 has a serial key like this, but I don't know if there are such restrictions on multiple players using the same one in a single game together (never tried that).

I'd personally draw the line at underage children and spouse as technically, you share most things with those people anyways (car, hard copies of games and movies, Netflix account, etc). Anything beyond that, they should have their own account.

Note that this is only my personal opinion. There, we have it.

You can share in your household, as others have said.

NWN1 comes with a generic multiplayer key. And you can request 1 personal multiplayer key via tech support. So you can play up to 2 people at a time with NWN1. The game tracks players by their CD key, so there is no way around it. If you play a multiplayer server with other people, then it's highly likely that the generic NWN CD key will be in use.

NWN2 comes with one individual key. You will need to create multiple GOG accounts to buy multiple NWN2 keys. It sucks, but that's the only way. Luckily, NWN2 is nowhere near as fun as NWN1, so you can just skip it. :-P

On that note, the old versions of those Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale can be played with up to 6 players with one copy of the game (you could actually do that with the old CD/DVD version of the game with some disc swapping.

In case it went under: There is no technical limitation on gogs side which prevent you to play whatever gog game on PC1 and your kid on PC2. Unlike with other clients the galaxy client is completly optional & ALL the games do not require any online connection or verification whatsoever beyond the download of the installer.

Unless, as other have pointed out, you play games online that, independent from gog, require keys for their online play. Like NWN.

Thanks all. My biggest concern was sharing the account at the same time. I tried to do something similar on Steam and it didn't work. As only one person could use the account/game at a time. So then i had to make a second account and repurchase some games for my second account so that 2 people could be on at the same time even if not in the same game.

We really don't plan to use the multi-player function just single player (probably offline). :)

Apparently its already the shame household so go ahead :o)

But does the FAQ cover the case of a shame household? Just kidding, dlux300!

Yes it is possible (always was) since the DRM is missing.
Personally, I find it acceptable because sometimes I even buy adventures for my wife, so sharing one account is just laziness.
Legally you might run into territory where in principle the license you buy is personalized. That's why family sharing is not explicit part of the TOS of GOG.

However given that they cannot do muich about it and family is a very limited range of people my guess is that GOG doesn't care.

So, do it.

I'm sure it was just a typo -- he probably meant sham household.

Well, at least they seem to feel shame about it.


Haha, have a +1. But we should stop, or dlux300! may never return.

:)
If this sort of banter puts him off, I don't think he'd have much hope of surviving in the wilds of GOG's General Discussion. =D