Force the user to have spent some money before they can post here, surely GOG can detect that. Granted, some psychos here may think it worth spending 1.49 just to annoy here; dunno where it ends.

Well those psychos are where the last resort of a ban hammer come in.

In my opinion you should at least spent 20 bucks in games before you have access to the forum.
Does anyone will offer that amount of money just to troll or stalk other people?
And to avoid alts, GOG knows whose PayPal accounts or credit cards were used.

XD I don't know if I ever spent $20 on one game in here. I have over 800 but I wait for sales.

There's a cure that's worse than the disease.

No, you absolutely do not prevent potential new customers from asking questions of the existing ones until they've paid you $20. That way madness (and financial ruin) lies.

Not on one game, of course.

Yes. They use it to block accounts from sending gifts if the account hasn't purchased $10 of stuff (at least 3 months ago, but the time frame isn't relevant).


Edit for clarity: Last I checked (last Christmas, or maybe the one before), there is an automated system already in place where an account can't buy a game as a gift unless the account has spent at least $10 (don't know if wallet funds, which didn't exist at the time, count) and it has been a few months since the $10 threshold was reached. I believe this was done to help deal with the credit card fraud that was prevalent at the time.

So yes, it is possible to restrict some actions based on actually spending money. How applicable this is to the forum side, I don't know.

Time to lighten the mood a little bit...

Wishbone is dead on here.

I feel like an idiot for not thinking of that myself.

Hm, I see. But what if the game forums are only available for the games you bought and the general forum is for verified users?

Then some of them become even more dead if people like to talk about the game but don't feel like re-buying it for the x-th time. And prospective new buyers will have to ask "Hey, is this game worth spending money on?" in GD.

So then I suggest a 3-class-system:

Class 3: new user -> only access to the new release and sale news posts.
Class 2: verified user -> access to the game forums and parts of the general discussion.
Class 1: trusted user -> all access including the trading thread.

The question is, how to classify the users. And please get rid of the downvote button.

"Oh there you go bringing class into it!"

If they use a VPN then I think GOG can't ban them for very long, which is why I think a money-spent check, or a "wait x hours before you can post in the main forum" might be more effective.

Because I'm not allowed to buy some of the games in my country, but already reached the age to play them many years ago, I'm in for a ID check. This would end the farce of regional blocked games and scammers, stalkers and alt-accounts.