So this is a streamer question.. I understand that the games are DRM free and somewhat understand how that works. I do know re-selling them is against the GOG TOS and I would not be one to do that. However, as a streamer I want to be able to give games to my viewers from time to time. If I were to play a game to completion, and then fully remove that game from my account. Would I be able to give that game away to a viewer? Which would also mean me fully deleting all files associated with that game on my PC once the transfer has been complete. Is this against GOG TOS or is that kinda a grey area I should probably steer clear from..?

Absolute legal minefield

First there are two things here: a service and a product
The service, hosting your games and cloud services etc; is absolutely non transferable. GoG are 100% in their legal rights to say no in the most absolute terms.

The product, the license and associated files it a bit more blurry. The jury is literally out on this. For software (office, Windows, older copies of photoshop. oracle license etc) a recent court case deemed it legal to transfer ownership. However in another case VALVE convinced a judge the games might not be software.

TLDR: No, you can't

First of all, you can't delete a game from your GOG account, at least not yourself. You might contact GOG support so that they would do it, but then you'd have to do it repeatedly and they might want to know why do you want them to do it (repeatedly), instead of merely hiding or not caring of completed games in your account.

I am pretty sure it is against the TOS to either sell or give the games, which you purchased to yourself and played yourself, to others, But it's legality may be in the grey area depending on your country's legislation, ie. if you really took it to court, they might decide it is ok as long as certain actions are taken. EDIT: And like mechmouse pointed out, the legislation and rules for the service itself, and the game itself, are different, but in your case you were not trying to pass the service to third parties (like that they would download the game themselves from GOG).

Anyway, I suggest you don't test it and don't do it. The point of DRM-free gaming is that the game publisher and the service provider trust you, the consumer, NOT to do what you are suggesting (sharing the games you've bought with others, especially strangers around the world you don't know). They are giving you the control over the games you purchase from them (by not slapping DRM on top of it), and you basically misuse that control, and their trust.

Thanks for your answer and suggestion :) Just out of curiosity, what would be the point of DRM Free games if you agree to do just like any other game company like Steam or Origin or Uplay does?

To me the main point of DRM-free is that I can install and play the games even if the service and store itself ceases to exist (and also if I am at a place with no or poor internet connectivity; yes I play on a laptop). Even if the GOG store and service closed its doors tomorrow, I could still install and play my GOG games. My GOG games don't have an umbilical cord to the store/service (as long as I download the game installers to my PC before the closure; I've done that already).

It has nothing to do with me feeling that I am somehow more eligible to e.g. lend, give or sell my GOG games to total strangers (or even relatives) than I am with e.g. Steam or Origin games. The same rules still apply, even if GOG games have less (or no) technical measures to control that you don't do anything the store or the publisher doesn't want you to do.

Let's put it this way. Burger King says you can take as many cups of coke with your burger meal as you want (something that is different from e,g, McDonald's at least here). So they are giving you the power to take as many cups of coke as you want, so technically you could e.g. ask all your friends and total strangers to come near the burger joint and keep passing free coca cola to all of them, and maybe set up a place outside the burger joint to sell coke to bypassers, because you can obtain it for "free" from Burger King.

But should you do that, even if you could (e.g. BK staff doesn't see what you are doing)? Obviously not, their meaning was that you take only so many cups that you can drink with your meal.

Of course it may a bit grey area and you might feel deviating from the rules might feel ok (to you). Like, at Burger King your kid sister wants a sip from your drink because she has something stuck in her mouth (a dildo probably), and you let her have a small sip, or at your home she wants to play some game from your GOG account, and you agree to install it on her laptop (in the same household). As a matter of fact that latter thing is apparently even allowed by the TOS, so one has to use their own judgement.

By the way, in your case "giving" the games to your viewers is probably more akin to selling the games to your viewers, because apparently it is your way to get more viewers to your channel. So it isn't like you are doing it out of the goodness of your heart, but "free GOG games to all!" is your selling point for your streamer channel.

However, what you CAN do is to buy gift codes for GOG games (from the GOG store), and pass them to your viewers. That is completely ok, but of course that costs you moneys. Such is life.

I was going to say exactly the same as timmpu, but keys, and then pass those onto your viewers. If you have enough people interested, you may even get a few for free from gog under advertising. Do note that there are already several free titles when creating an account, and some games which have been for free in the past many people have keys they are willing to give away or trade, look at the trade thread.
You could also link in mods there as well, from moddb and nexus to expand content.
Apologies, that's timppu, can't edit posts on mobile.

DRM adds an extra layer (which has nothing to do with the actual game) on top of the games which can become distributive, infer with the gameplay and at times make the game unavailable to play. Some consider this anti-consumerist practice, as it creates hoops that a paying customer must jump through, while pirates do not.

Consider for example Denuvo, which takes resources, and can reduce the framerate on slower computers, or starforce which does not work if it can not access the validation server. As with Steam, if the game requires CEG (steamworks DRM) it can refuse to run if the machine goes off line and and you have not saved your credentials. So it can create problems pirated (and DRM free) games do not have.

For game preservation, it is an aditional layer which needs to be removed to make older games work on newer computers, as well as validation servers being taken off-line making the games unable to start. and so on.

As others have mentioned, it would be as a key and not the actual game as others have mentioned.

Having said that though, GoG has a streamers policy/ program/ etc which you'll need to contact them to discuss:

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212184689-Contact-information-for-affiliates-press-publishers-future-employees

From discussions (ie hints) made by a few of the Twitch streamers, they seem to be a bit strict about it. Considering that's really all of the info we've gotten about it, there's probably an NDA involved as well.

Hope this helps

edit: Having said that, I doubt giving away a couple of keys that you purchased yourself to stream watchers would be an issue. Just remember to give them the actual key privately like in an email. Those keys aren't tied to any account and anyone can use them.

When it comes to non-DRM companies like GOG many view it as a "support" when buying DRM-free software, and it's not legal to sell your software commercially and make money out of it, for that you need a licensed agreement from the developer/publishers, kinda like what GOG has. As you could make 1000s of copies in mere seconds/minutes it could be easy for you to make lots of money. Either way, such things are considered "not accepted"/illegal.

Actually, GOG and/or the publisher could sue you if you're giving away illegal games like that, or have your account suspended at least, on youtube or other places, if GOG decides to send a petition to the owner of that site/service you have viewers.

But then again, nothing stops you from just giving a copy to a friend. But it would be best to just buy a gift code and give that to one of the viewers.

I have nothing to say, really; I just couldn't let this pass unremarked-upon. Random stealth comedy insert for the win.

Does gog remove games from your account ? you are saying that you just want to remove the game without any refunds ?

also what kinda giveaway is that where you transfer the files to the winner ? isn't that piracy no matter what file sharing system you use for that , the game developer/publisher can have you account suspended for piracy, its not worth the risk.

Removing the game from your account releases gog from your liability but ip holder/publisher/developer still have a legal right to their work and without their permission you cannot give their work for free. Also note that gog has permanently banned people who shared their drm free games before.

So make this legit

1) you remove the game from your account.

2) Ask the ip holder/publisher/dev that if they are ok with you sharing their work for free to someone else

3) then proceed .

Remember if twitch or whatever platform gets a notified of this you will be suspended.

https://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/983016

Good! You passed the test! it was just my way to see if people are still paying attention.

I learned this technique a long time ago from an university professor who wanted to see whether his students were still awake and paying attention, so he started adding "dildo" to his lecture, like "As the known philosopher Augustus Dildo once said..." and so on, dildo this dildo that.

If students still failed to pay attention, he'd just crank up the amount of dildos in his speech, until every word was a dildo. At that point everyone would automatically get a fail for the course. If, however, any student would wake up and ask "Excuse me sir, but what do dildos have anything to do with quantum physics?", he'd be overly delighted and give that student a toy dildo as a prize.

Unfortunately, like all stories, this story has a sad ending. The professor got sacked for "sexual harassment" during the #metoo campaign because apparently he had been talking about dildos to his students. Now he lives alone in a small flat with all his unused prize dildos.

So kids, stay away from dildos.

Congratz! Many seems to be really into dildoes these days, so you really caught a big one there with your nifty trick!

Legally speaking, there' no definitive on the legality of streaming with or without explicit permissions. According to some streamers that have been in contact with different developers/publishers says that most are comfortable with the status quo. This way they can choose to react or not. Usually only if your account is associated with many subscribers and trash talk the game endlessly.

So yeah, it's only based on courtesy and respect if one chooses to ask for permission to use a particular game in a stream.

Few reacts negatively to streamers no matter if the critique are negative or positive, fortunately, and it really should be legal to talk/show openly about a game, unless we're talking about a direct competitor, which by EU law is illegal.

But the new content ID law from the EU might change all that.