I don't care what you call it, and you don't get to have your own facts. Facts apply to everyone, not just you, and they are independently verifiable. GOG could legally prevent anyone from posting if they don't own any games here, that's reality, deal with it. Or don't, but I'm not going to engage if you insist on living in your own fantasyland.

LOL

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Maybe, so long as it can be tweaked to recognize free games and demos. Remembering that some free games were only free for a day or so and now no longer are. If bad folk are prepared to take their time setting up for an attack, then that is hard to cater for without complex checking.

But all that aside, GOG provide the forum for a reason, and I doubt it is so we can have chats about whatever. The primary reason I expect, is for chatting about games, though they don't in their benevolence limit chats to just that.

So new potential customers would be part of GOG providing a forum. Some no doubt create a GOG account to get a game or more, while others might create a GOG account to chat with the community. Many folk like to participate in chat rooms, regardless of buying any games. Once they have a GOG account though, well GOG probably feel it is only a matter of time before they get lured into buying something ... maybe due to a conversation in a thread they participated in.

What GOG probably need is more MODs, who can at least contact a MOD with the power to remove spam.

Since you have decided to respond, I can only assume that you are interested in continuing the dialogue. Well then, let's proceed.

Firstly, I will quote you:
"I don't care what you call it, and you don't get to have your own facts. Facts apply to everyone, not just you, and they are independently verifiable. GOG could legally prevent anyone from posting if they don't own any games here, that's reality, deal with it. Or don't, but I'm not going to engage if you insist on living in your own fantasyland." (by eric5h5)

If you didn't care, then you wouldn't have started writing in the first place, right? There is no such thing as "my own facts" - at least, I am not aware of it.

Facts are indeed applicable to everyone. If I claimed otherwise, please quote me; otherwise, it would be considered a lie.

For educational purposes, let me remind you what fact really is:
A fact is an objective, verifiable piece of information that can be proven to be true or false based on evidence or data. It is something that has actually occurred, exists, or can be demonstrated. Facts are not subjective opinions or beliefs, but rather concrete and measurable data that can be backed up by evidence. Examples of facts include historical events, statistical data, scientific discoveries, and other empirical evidence.

GOG can do anything they want with their services, absolutely. As for legality, I am not a lawyer to easily discuss this. I dared to suggest that dividing customers into groups where some have full access to common services, in this case, a forum and the ability to create new threads for discussion, while others do not, is discrimination in essence.

The main 3 facts I presented were:
1) User = Client = Customer (synonym to "client") can't be without an account and agreeing to User's Agreement terms
2) The definition of discrimination
3) Text from The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union EU regarding the "discrimination"

(I might have presented more of course, but those 3 were the core of my point)

Please note that an assumption (especially about events that have not happened or even been planned for the future) cannot be considered a "fact" (see definition above). This is the reality of things, and I cannot deny it. I hope you can come to terms with it as well.

You may enter into discussions with any user at your discretion and without any conditions. But in a sense, you are right - each of us lives with certain illusions. For example, I live with the illusion that everyone should be polite, tactful, considerate, and tolerant of the opinions of others. Alas, I am infinitely spoiled. Who laughs best, laughs last, or how does it say? ;)

Someone was busy over the last few hours...~440 bot threads...impressive.

Sorry, you can be a non-customer user. And on a privately owned forum, they can literally discriminate for any reason they so choose, as long as it's not because you are a protected class. i.e. If they say gay people or French people can't post, fine. That's legally discrimination and they can be fined and sued for it. But saying people who haven't met x criteria for posting can't post is discrmination... are you daft? Of course they'd have to re-write the TOS, since that would be a change to it. It wouldn't be the first time someone has changed their TOS. I have several notices within the last month from companies such as Google and Sony changing theirs. I don't think the "paying customer{" route is the right one, but let's be clear. Non-paying user is not a protected class that they can't discriminate agaist.
They wouldn't be limiting based on if you own any games because you don't own any games on GOG legally. You agree to licenses. It's a distinction that matters in this case.

I don't understand how you can be a non-customer user on GOG, sorry. Daft? OK, whatever...

By simply reading what's written on the forum and on the game's pages (reviews, etc).
You don't need an account to do that.

Edit: to be more clear...

There are already a lot of things you can benefit from, even as a non-registered user:

You can follow along the threads/discussions, you can look up games (screenshots, trailers, descriptions) and their reviews, you can also look up possible solutions to problems with games in the subforums...

The only things you can't do, as long as you are not a registered user is to open threads and post comments/reviews/questions/solutions to problems, yourself.

You can be a non-customer user by not purchasing anything.

GOG User is the same as GOG Client or GOG Customer since whener a new account is created that user sign the User's Agreement which grants him services, among others access to GOG Forum and Customer Support.

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog

How told you that customer must be the one who pays money?

While customers typically exchange money or something of value for goods or services, there are situations where businesses offer their products or services for free. For example, some software companies offer free versions of their programs to individual users, while monetizing their product through other means such as advertising or premium features. Similarly, many online services such as email and social media platforms are offered to users at no cost, but generate revenue through advertising.

As to your previous post regarding "not owning" games, fine. How about purchasing exlusive license to use a software product? Does it change anything?


Internet user who browses the internet in read-only mode is not the same as GOG user with GOG account and GOG User's Agrement auto-sign with full access to the forum in read/write mode with ability to create new threads.

It does not. First the license is by its nature non-exclusive. What that means is by having said license, you can't prohibit anyone else from getting it. It is specifically non-exclusive, non-transferrable. You are agreeing to a license in exchange for money. It's still not legally defined as property, or at least doesn't definitely qualify as property at this time (that could always change). Furthermore, the criteria wouldn't be if you owned any games, but rather if you had acvtually purchased any. It's not the property, but whether or not you've spent any money, or how much you've spent. We're still quibbling over semantics, which is fun. But I don't even see the "make them spend money" option as the best solution.

They could just make the forums pay to access, or make a paid and free section like most sports fora I'm on, and they don't get spam like this. They also have other methods to keep out the bots. GOG just doesn't want to invest the time or money to fix this issue and it's hurting them. They look like a third rate store. The best option is a full retirement and replacement of the forum, but they're extremely resistant to such for whatever reasons. But the perception does hurt them.

In some jurisdictions, a software license may be considered a form of intellectual property, which grants the licensee certain limited rights to use the product. These rights may be considered a form of "property" in the sense that they can be bought, sold or transferred to another party. In other jurisdictions, the courts have held that software licenses do not grant ownership or any proprietary interest in the underlying software code. Instead, they are seen as contractual agreements that govern the use of the software, which may or may not constitute a form of property depending on the specific wording of the license agreement.

Let's assume that Poland, along with all other EU countries as well as the US, UK, Canada and Australia (insert any other desirable countries) have agreed that a GOG license to download, install and play certain games cannot be considered property. Your argument is that EU laws would not apply because discrimination against sex, race, religion, property, etc. is clearly stated in the text, but there is no mention of owning or purchasing a license, so it is not discrimination. Is that correct? Can only those things be used for discrimination, and nothing else at all? Are you sure about that? If so, then you win a flawless victory of semantics. You haven't answered anything about non-user customers - does this imply that you agree that customers can receive free services without paying money and still be called "customers"?

I wash my hands.

Exactly!
That's why paladin181 wrote:
It's really not that hard to understand.
A user doesn't necessarily have to be a customer.
Thus: "non-customer user"