GOG Has Made A Surprising (And Grim) Change To Their Game Ownership Policy

Good Old Games or GOG.com may be only a fraction of the size of Steam, or even Epic Games Store, in terms of market share or profitability. But CD Projekt RED continues to keep their DRM-free distribution business going even though the current lean years.

Part of this may be an affirmation of their original values. After all, CD Projekt RED was originally a game distributor in Poland before making their own games. CDPR saw a market flourishing in piracy, and made a niche for themselves offering high quality, DRM-free rereleases of games. That business put them in the position where they’re in today, making some of the biggest games in the industry such as The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077.

But part of this may also be a new positioning of CD Projekt RED themselves, establishing what they want the video game industry to be, in spite of the differing positions of the establishment among the console companies, and their peers selling and distributing games.

As reported by Respawnfirst, GOG has revealed one new thing where they have decided to distinguish themselves in their policies and services to competitor Steam. GOG will, under specific circumstances, give over a deceased player’s games to another player.

Now, Steam recently went viral online, as fans discovered that they will not allow players to give their Steam games or game libraries over to other people in case that they pass away.

On its face, this question certainly seems absurd, but it is something to think about. If someone who had a complete NES library passed away, they would have had to name an inheritor to their NES console and games. Especially with the inflated NES collector’s market, there’s a real value to those games.

So, why is it possible to inherit physical video games, but not digital video games? Steam’s response to this digital ownership question has fans complaining and talking about lobbying for a change.

But GOG’s response to this question reflects on how they go about their video game retail and distribution business differently from Steam. As they explain, they don’t collect enough information on their GOG account users, to identify that user. Subsequently, that means they can’t identify if their friends or family are asking for access to their games in the case of their death.

So here’s their take: if someone can give them legal documents allowing someone to take over another person’s library, they will honor that request. Here’s GOG’s wording:

“In general, your GOG account and GOG content is not transferable. However, if you can obtain a copy of a court order that specifically entitles someone to your GOG personal account… we’ll do our best to make it happen.

We’re willing to handle such situations and preserve your GOG library, but currently need the help of the justice system.”

Of course, GOG also pointed out that they distribute their games DRM-free. So, if the deceased GOG account user downloaded DRM-free installers for their games, and had them saved up in a computer or some other form of storage, that will give them the access to those games.

As fascinating as this hypothetical is, maybe there should be a way to just give one’s digital games from one player to another, that should just be protected in international law. We certainly don’t live in a world where that’s a reality, but if we’re talking about digital ownership in this way, why not take it forward to where the conversation would eventually end up anyway? But we’ll see if someone actually follows through in testing this policy with GOG.