Thanks for the smooth trade, hitclub!

Want:
Kane & Lynch 2 (humble bundle)
Kill the bad guy (also humble)

Haves

There isn't much to discuss really. In fact, any attempt to force GOG into an "official" statement about key trading can only worsen the situation, the best option is that the status quo remains.

If you aren't involved in the business, then you may have no idea how determined some publishers are about stopping the wild trading of their keys. Many bundle sites already added a clause to their terms of use that explicitly forbids the resale of keys, this was done at request of the publishers. Humble and IndieGala now use gift links instead of keys, this was done at the request of the publishers so that the deals can be traced better. If you think that publishers will stand idle while people mass-buy 1$ bundles and then sell those keys at 15% below list price on "CD key stores", think again. Publishers make test purchases on those stores, check their internal lists which store originally received those keys, and know pretty well how bundle offers get abused regularly and routinely. There are major developments going on behind the scenes, and I don't think we'll see keys much longer. Steam already has the infrastructure for abolishing overt keys, Origin and Uplay are working on their own systems. And all this is being done because publishers feel a need to crack down on bundle abuse and unsolicited trading.

It is awfully nice of GOG that they do, so far, tolerate that members of their community are swapping keys here. This is actually quite risky for GOG because their business depends on the cooperation of the publishers, and letting us do something that those publishers may easily frown upon is not something that we should take for granted. Officially supporting resales of keys is roughly in the same league as officially supporting piracy, from the perspective of some publishers.

Any attempt to force GOG into an official statement about trading will only push the situation in favor of the publishers who may read such official statements. As long as this is a community of friends swapping duplicates of games, or gifts, it can probably be tolerated unofficially. Asking for more is asking for trouble. If some of us are putting price tags on their "offers", or link to pages which clearly show that they are selling keys for money, they are putting GOG in a potentially precarious situation.

Thanks for the smooth trade, Heretic777! That's our second one this year. :)

Thanks to KoreaBeat for a recent trade.

Many thanks to GetComposted for another trade.

I'm bumping my trade offer, because I'm rapidly running out of new games to play. So,
Have: Xenonauts (GOG)
Want: Unrest, the basic edition without the extra fancy stuff (GOG or Steam)

Save 10 bucks!

Branjohello, thanks for another nice trade :)

Then should we disregard the issue and just let people buy/sell and take risks themselves, instead of babysitting everyone?
Still, if a blue has the power to punish people for breaking rules that are not even officially listed within the site (not just some random forum post), it needs to be addressed.


About the state of key reselling, that is a different mess, the devs/publishers themselves created.
Legally, I'm sure any kind of price fixing, or measures to prevent people from selling owned goods is illegal (except for actual laws, like for drugs/firearms).
I'm also pretty sure you can't have people sign away their rights or have them break laws by agreeing to any kind of tos/user agreement/etc.
They only reason devs/publishers/distributors can even contemplate this, is the fact that laws involving the digital age are not being enforced, or they are not up to date.

Of course, all these complaining devs/publishers can simply just have a single price for their game, no sales, no bundles, no regional pricing (only incremental base price drops over the years).
Or for another fix: tie the game license directly to the account (steam/other platforms) at the time of purchase.
But this is getting into another realm of drm... hell, it is pratically happening now, with steam/uplay/origin.


It will all blow up, and I hope in favor of the consumer/people, and not in favor of the greedy companies..
I really wish this would have happened yesterday. I'm not going to hypothesize the reasons...........
*phew that was tough, the conspiracy theorist in me allmost clawed its way to the surface.... *cough bribes. :D :D :D

[HAVE]
Torchlight (GOG)
Aarklash Legacy (GOG)

[WANT]
Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete (GOG)

I'll trade both games for Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete (GOG version).

Major update on my list

=> Click me! <=

Bump it up! :P

Edit: Deal done.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say, but what we _should_ do is pretty simple:
- Enjoy swapping duplicates of games here
- Being thankful that GOG lets us do that even though it has a potential of getting them in trouble with publishers they depend on
- NOT trying to force GOG into official rules about this issue (because they will be worse than the status quo)
- Stopping pointless discussions about this

Erm ... what? This site is GOG's property, you're a guest in their house. Of course GOG's staff can "punish" you for anything you do that they deem inacceptable, and of course there doesn't need to be an exhaustive list of transgressions. Have you read GOG's terms of use (specifically the "termination of access at any time for any reason" part), or those of any comparable business that provides a forum? It's very nice of GOG that they use this "power" very rarely and that they treat their community with respect and care, but of course they have the right and the power to "punish" you, you've given it to them when you signed up and accepted the terms of use. There is nothing that "needs to be addressed" except perhaps some misconceptions on your part, I'm afraid.

What's your legal expertise? Did you take into account that different countries have very different laws about this? Did you take into account that even countries that do have laws against retail price maintenance, often do allow vertical RPM, and/or provide exceptions? Did you take into account that many laws only affect physical products, while the items we are talking about here are mostly not even digital products, but subscriptions (which, by definition, are tied to a user)? Did you take into account that most online stores don't actually "resell" goods because they aren't buying them from the publisher in the first place? You are making a pretty bold legal statement here, what's your exact source?

In any case, what's more important is that laws about RPM aren't terribly relevant here, because if a publisher doesn't like what GOG is doing (or tolerating in their forums), they can very easily stop doing business with them, completely regardless of any RPM laws.

Look, I don't want to get into a "fight" with you and I'm sorry if I sound harsh. I think you're a nice guy, probably nicer than I am. But I have to say that your approach to resales, trade laws, terms of use, and your status as a user of a company's online forum, seems a bit naive. I would recommend to thoroughly read the terms of use of the places you frequent and/or from where you buy, and perhaps read up a bit on the legal situation (though that will be difficult because it currently is, frankly, a mess).

Many thanks to undeadcow for Blocks that Matter! :)


Updated trade list here

Updated my trade list.