B1tF1ghter: How about you read GOG TOS for a change?
frogthroat: I did, but I am no legal expert. Therefore I am not sure what I read.
(...)
I don't need reassurances that this will never happen -- I know this already. But I am interested in the technical side. Could this
technically give GOG the right to cancel my account for anything they decide is offensive with no means to get the games I have purchased?
I will put it this way:
As long as their TOS is within legal limits they can do anything - that is - their TOS
needs to be within legal limits, about which I am not atm sure.
I can give you an example:
HumbleBundle does (or did, I wasn't following the case in few months) have TOS that is
literally illegal in
EU.
They "reserve themselves right to terminate your account and restrict your access to already purchased content" for basically "any reason".
And they did, as proven by quite some of their customers, block access to already purchased unactivated keys (sometimes even invalidating already activated ones) aside from banning corresponding accounts
just because customer in question resold/gaveaway/whatever their legally obtained keys.
Here note:
1.YES. It does apply to GIVEAWAYS too.
2.It apparently also applies to "I activated this on my ACTUAL own non-primary Steam account".
It
DOESN'T matter if "key reselling" is morally right or not.
What matters is that in EU law is such that once you pay for and get delivered legally obtained key at that point the original seller has
NO jurisdiction
WHATSOEVER anymore in regards to what you can do with the key.
Key reselling is 100% legal in EU.
Therefore HumbleBundle's actions are fraudulent and literally illegal.
It's quite bizzare that they have had been getting away with it for quite an extended period of time (they may possibly still be, I don't know since like I said, I didn't follow the case for the last few months).
So, back to your question, "can GOG do what they want"?
Probably yes because even if their TOS would be illegal they could still potentially get away with it if not "influencial enough" people would notice that.
And should you take legal route, they could likely hire lawyers to blast you to oblivion just because they have more MONEY than you (theoretically speaking).
frogthroat: And a little side note:
11.1
(h) Don’t share, ‘buy’, ‘sell’, transfer, gift, lend, steal, misappropriate or misuse GOG accounts. GOG keys/codes can only be gifted or transferred or used in the ways permitted by GOG. If you have any questions or problems, contact customer support. I think in 2018 EU got the first proper digital inheritance directives so in case of death I should be able to transfer my account to the next of kin. But I am not sure about this either.
I have no clue about this. And frankly I don't follow
most EU regulations since major chunk of them is utter BS and I don't like watching "questionably competent" people at work.