I think I've run into this case twice, where someone I know was willing to gift someone a game on GOG, only to find out that since they primarily use Steam and have had little reason to buy anything on GOG, they have to make a purchase of some amount and then spend 3 months after that purchase to be able to gift with:

- Credit cards
- PayPal
- GOG wallet

Leaving the only options: Google Pay and Skrill.

One of my friends did try the Google Pay option only to be told "You can't buy some of the products. Please review your order." Which isn't great.

I think I remember the initial point for this restriction being to protect GOG from fraud, but I also have to think from the POV of someone who, like I mentioned above, primarily uses Steam but willing to deal with something else. Like how many have went back to Steam because gifting someone else was restricted? I also haven't heard of itch.io implementing any of these restrictions, cause gifting from there works like a charm.

I can't help but feel this hurts GOG as it prevents legitimate buyers from actually GIVING THEM MONEY unless they're willing to wait those three months - or just gift that game on Steam instead.

I'm not a lawyer, but an arbitrary law either in Poland or the EU would be what I would pick as a "logical" reason.

Lacking for that, one of the Blues would have to come along and explain why this policy exists.

The reason is fraud prevention, I believe.

Let's assume a criminal has just stolen the details of some credit card and he wishes to use video game gifting to make some money out of it.

On steam, he is prevented from doing so by the fact that steam gifting is giftee-specific. He cannot simply buy a key and then resell it later on the black market because he needs the details of the giftee first. That is steam's heuristic fraud prevention scheme.

On GOG, there is no such limitation, so he could theoretically buy as many keys as he wants, sell them on the black market for even less than he bought them for and still make a cash profit. By having the restriction you refer to in the OP, GOG makes it much more complex to do so, and thus discourages fraud. That is GOG's heuristic fraud prevention scheme.

I, myself, greatly prefer GOG's solution. I have never bought a gift on steam because of the giftee limitation, while buying many on GOG over the years to give away to initially unknown giftees. I --- and many others --- would likely stop buying gifts altogether on GOG if it had steam's fraud prevention scheme instead of GOG's.

Yes. GOG loses some friendly gifting, but overall I believe it gains much more.

The same day I created the account, I gave a gift to a friend, and I had no problems. Before that, he gave me a gift, so maybe that changes things.
I don't see the problem with spending the minimum of €10 and waiting three months. If the other person you're going to give the gift to doesn't use GOG, in the end they'll only play one game and stick with Steam, If they're interested in coming to GOG, they would have already created an account and purchased it here.

This post I think is the most reasonable explanation for the restriction, I can see where it's coming from. The fact we can just make gift codes is a blessing we probably don't appreciate as much when you put it in that context, too. Do you remember if that gift you got from the friend is below or above the minimum €10?

The problem with "it's okay to wait three months" is if you have a good sale on a game and you want to strike while the iron is hot. By the time the three months are up, the simplest thing would be the giftee no longer has interest in the game. And I'd argue this gives a bad first impression of GOG for a gifter who normally just sticks to the other store - that's my main issue here, it's the impression someone gets.

I actually would mind it less if instead of "three months" it was a week or two. Or put a limit on how many gifts you can send initially.

It is the person buying the gift that has to spend $10 in the account and then wait 3 months, not the giftee. If the buyer primarily uses a different platform but the person they want to gift a game to uses GOG, they are unable to buy them a gift on their preferred platform. For example, I mostly use Steam so I have not met the $10 threshold on GOG, I wanted to take advantage of a sale and buy a gift for someone who uses GOG as their main platform. I was not able to. I would have had to spend $10 on a platform I do not use, then wait 3 months to buy the item I want to gift, at which point the sale would be over.

I see this as part of a bigger issue. GOG has a kind of monopoly on its own platform. Why doesn't GOG open up more to third party sellers like Steam does? For me, this is a fundamental reason why Steam remains the dominant PC gaming store. Not just because of features, customer loyalty, or catalog size, but because it embraces a wide ecosystem of authorized third party sellers.

How can GOG realistically expect to compete not only with Steam but also with all the third party sellers like Humble Bundle, Fanatical, Green Man Gaming, Eneba, G2A, Kinguin and others? Does GOG really think that its own sales events can match the combined reach, pricing competition, and marketing power of all those platforms together? Here you can include gifting and payment options.

From a business point of view, why does GOG want to take all the risk and work to sell directly to customers? Why not sell bulk keys to third party sellers who then handle distribution and pricing competition? Joining the marketplace price wars and sharing income with partners isn't a weakness. It can help GOG to have more reach and more money without doing all the work.

Moreover, GOG already competes with Steam prices and sales aggressively, which is an extraordinary achievement in itself. Opening to third party sellers wouldn't undermine that. It would amplify GOG's market presence and better position it against Steam's vast ecosystem. Like gifting

I just looked it up and it costs 5€ You're right, I hadn't thought about sales or discounts, maybe it would be best to wait a few weeks as you say. I know, what I'm saying is that I bought him a gift without waiting those three months. He previously gave me a gift that, considering the price, cost 5€, and I gave him a 30€ gift, without having bought anything beforehand. That's why I'm surprised that you have to spend 10€ on something and then wait three months.

GOG sells here on its platform, on Humble Bundle, on Fanatical, and rarely via the direct developer sites. Codes are also issued via Prime Gaming's subscription.

The grey reseller market also has GOG codes and is the chief cause of complainants for games being removed from customer's accounts when the CC companies track down payment fraud. Frankly so am I. The minimum spend system has been in place for a long time
The support site still states this: Maybe you got through by accident somehow? I've been here too long to remember clearly, but I was under the impression I myself didn't get gifting enabled until I spent on the site personally (and friends had gifted me items over the minimum value long before that).

So unless GOG has changed things behind the scenes in the recent past and not officially announced the change, or receiving gifts don't count towards the gifting restriction.

Fraud might be the reason.

But it could just as likely be GOG not wanting accounts created for folk who don't actually use GOG as a gamer. In other words they don't want folk creating an account just to gift a game.

I'm not sure I see why that would be an issue for GOG. If you create an account to gift a game, not only are you sending someone a code to use with GOG, you're also giving them the full monetary value of the gift after any promotion discounts but without any price deductions resulting from your region having lower prices. So if the game costs $5 for yourself in a cheaper region, you might pay $10 to gift it to literally any region.

If it was just about the money, they wouldn't have the 3 month wait rule.

I imagine it could be about statistics, and an account that isn't a Gamer account is a kind of nothing account. GOG could be riddled with such accounts, if they let folk do that. As it is, members who do the wrong thing, and have more than one account, screw with their statistics.

Anyway, it could be a possibility, just as there could be some issue with potential related refunds.

P.S. Ask yourself. Do GOG really want unused accounts, that were just used once for gifting, and nothing else?

Well, I see it no differently than a GOG account that has one game and no more. Heck, I just downvoted a review the other day from an account with only 2 games. But at worst, if these "unused" accounts are putting some strain on a GOG database or something, they could quietly remove them, not that that would be popular here.

I see it more like, you have a customer who would normally shop elsewhere, and they showed up to your shop and want to buy as a gift. Making it a little harder to buy that gift is an impression that maybe they're better off without. Maybe the gifter could become a permanent GOG shopper if they realize their gifting system is unique as mrkgnao pointed out, or if they realize their mission aligns with the shopper's values.

Whatever the reason, GOG have clearly been happy to continue with it, despite any loss of potential profit.

I well remember when I first joined back in May 2017, along with a friend who also joined at the same time, who wasn't very financial. I tried to gift him a game, and despite having bought several for myself by that point, I wasn't allowed to buy a game and gift it to him, until after three months.

So GOG have been following their policy for many years now.