GoG User Agreement Changes Discussion

[Takei]

What are you guys thinking about the new User Agreement changes with GoG?

Essentially they are forbidding modding any game you get from them, even if the publisher allows it.

1.3 Also, when we're talking about games, in-game content, virtual items or currency or GOG videos or other content or services which you can purchase or access via GOG services, we’ll just call them “GOG games” or “GOG videos” respectively and when we talk about them all together they are “GOG content”.

2.2 When you buy, access or install GOG games, you might have to agree to additional contract terms with the developer/publisher of the game (e.g. they might ask you to agree to a game specific End User License Agreement). If there is any inconsistency or dispute between those ‘EULAs’ and this Agreement, then this Agreement wins.

11.1
(e) Do not create, use, make available and/or distribute cheats, exploits, automation software, robots, bots, mods, hacks, spiders, spyware, cheats, scripts, trainers, extraction tools or other software that interact with or affect GOG services or GOG content in any way (including, without limitation, any unauthorized third party programs that intercept, emulate, or redirect any communication between GOG or its partners and GOG services and/or any unauthorized third party programs that collect information about GOG services).


Source:
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articl ... roduct=gog

It might also be interesting to have official word on this issue.

[alt3rn1ty]

11.1
(e) Do not create, use, make available and/or distribute cheats, exploits, automation software, robots, bots, mods, hacks, spiders, spyware, cheats, scripts, trainers, extraction tools or other software that interact with or affect GOG services or GOG content in any way (including, without limitation, any unauthorized third party programs that intercept, emulate, or redirect any communication between GOG or its partners and GOG services and/or any unauthorized third party programs that collect information about GOG services).

The way I read that is don't make anything that messes with GOG Galaxy communications or GOG services.

"Do not create .. (blah blah blah) .. that interact with or affect GOG services or GOG content"

The games content is not GOG content, so we can still mod the game as per the original publishers EULAs / T&Cs etcetera.

And if you run the game from its original .exe from the Manual Offline installers, instead of running it through GOG Galaxy so there is no GOG Galaxy services running in the background .. There's no issue on your own machine.

[mr.WHO]

Yep, this is nothing burger.

GOG games are by design DRM free and work off-line, so there is (for majority of GOG games) no way for GOG to stop you from modding.

[Takei]

11.1
(e) Do not create, use, make available and/or distribute cheats, exploits, automation software, robots, bots, mods, hacks, spiders, spyware, cheats, scripts, trainers, extraction tools or other software that interact with or affect GOG services or GOG content in any way (including, without limitation, any unauthorized third party programs that intercept, emulate, or redirect any communication between GOG or its partners and GOG services and/or any unauthorized third party programs that collect information about GOG services).

The way I read that is don't make anything that messes with GOG Galaxy communications or GOG services.

"Do not create .. (blah blah blah) .. that interact with or affect GOG services or GOG content"

The games content is not GOG content, so we can still mod the game as per the original publishers EULAs / T&Cs etcetera.

And if you run the game from its original .exe from the Manual Offline installers, instead of running it through GOG Galaxy so there is no GOG Galaxy services running in the background .. There's no issue on your own machine.

Clause 1.3 clearly states that in-game content also falls under GoG content

[Takei]

Yep, this is nothing burger.

GOG games are by design DRM free and work off-line, so there is (for majority of GOG games) no way for GOG to stop you from modding.

I wouldn't say so. If you publish any mods under the same/similar username etc, they could ban your GoG account if they don't like them.
Even if you publish those mods on a different site, since you have still made mods for GoG content.

[felter]

There is nothing to worry about, you can still mod and even cheat in the games you own, so long as it doesn't affect others people, in other words cheating on an online game, coop games and the likes are a no, no. When you are using theirs or partner's software or services like their forums or GOG galaxy, they are saying you can't mod that or interfere with it spy on it or scrape data from it, or its workings. Basically, they are trying to cover their own ass so if they get hacked or someone manages to use their services to steal their customer's data, they can go we don't allow that, and we have told everyone that we don't allow it. But as for games, nothing is changing, so long as you behave yourself, which you should be doing anyway.

[Takei]

There is nothing to worry about, you can still mod and even cheat in the games you own, so long as it doesn't affect others people, in other words cheating on an online game.

Could you please cite where it limits the ban on modding of ingame content and cheats to only online portions of the game? I can't find that portion in the User Agreement sadly.

[mr.WHO]

I wouldn't say so. If you publish any mods under the same/similar username etc, they could ban your GoG account if they don't like them.
Even if you publish those mods on a different site, since you have still made mods for GoG content.

LOL, with all the recent lay-off across digital industry, do you really think GoG will have money and manpower to chase some modders across internet?


Whole stick of GoG is the DRM-free games that work offline (with the exceptions of MP of course) - if GoG will start to chase modders it will be business suicide as they would have nothing comparing to Steam or Epic.

[alt3rn1ty]

11.1
(e) Do not create, use, make available and/or distribute cheats, exploits, automation software, robots, bots, mods, hacks, spiders, spyware, cheats, scripts, trainers, extraction tools or other software that interact with or affect GOG services or GOG content in any way (including, without limitation, any unauthorized third party programs that intercept, emulate, or redirect any communication between GOG or its partners and GOG services and/or any unauthorized third party programs that collect information about GOG services).

The way I read that is don't make anything that messes with GOG Galaxy communications or GOG services.

"Do not create .. (blah blah blah) .. that interact with or affect GOG services or GOG content"

The games content is not GOG content, so we can still mod the game as per the original publishers EULAs / T&Cs etcetera.

And if you run the game from its original .exe from the Manual Offline installers, instead of running it through GOG Galaxy so there is no GOG Galaxy services running in the background .. There's no issue on your own machine.

Clause 1.3 clearly states that in-game content also falls under GoG content

Yes I know, but I think that would not hold up. A lot of the game content (lets say Textures/Sounds/Animations for examples) were contracted by the original game developer from third party artists.
With those contracts comes copyright /intelectual property that even the original developer can not go against.

So my thoughts are .. How can GOG legally get away with claiming that the whole game content which they had no part in developing can become theirs?. I think they have made a clause there that is not legal, a general sweeping statement that is a mistake. GOG are resellers, not owners of the multi-layered IPs within a game, they may have done some tweaking to the code in some cases to make it work on modern machines, but they cannot claim to have remade every assett within the game from scratch.

Personally I think if the original game developer and artists sub-contracted were to challenge this clause, GOG would be in hot water.
IANAL, but I have seen a lot of copyright arguments on the hidden modding authors forum on NexusMods.

And as has already been stated by others, they are not going to stop me doing what I want on my machine = Nothing to worry about.

[chew-ie]

Interesting discussion...

And as has already been stated by others, they are not going to stop me doing what I want on my machine = Nothing to worry about.

That's my take as well.

The moment GOG sues anyone because of those changes is the moment I leave that platform for good. As it is right now my source to get DRM free software. If any restrictions are made in that regard there is no point in buying there anymore.

edit: The overall motivation for the changes is communicated here by GOG: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/were_ ... erms_26e5a

[alt3rn1ty]

Also just as an example - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/

NexusMods currently hosts over 70000 mods for Skyrim Special Edition, and billions of users not just of mods for that game, but a huge amount of supported games.
In Skyrims case (and Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout series games) Bethesda's individual game EULA's and T&Cs (And the various Construction set / Creation Kit modding support tools EULAs) which Bethesda provided, allowed all of that to happen.

GOG cant just sweep all of that off the internet with an ill thought out clause, if they did there would be quite a lot of businesses going down due to this one clause, and then they would be hammered. Plus a huge amount of loss in terms of GOG customers.

[KarlSten]

Could mean that they forbid the development and use of the lgogdownloader and comparable programs.