The Daily Populous Sunday June 2nd, 2024 evening edition
Authored by respawnfirst.com and submitted by Darth_Vaper883

GOG (Good Old Games) has given some clarity to what happens to your digital game library when you pass away.

In a statement provided to Respawnfirst, GOG addressed the issue directly: “As this is a particularly delicate matter with little to no existing legal guidance on the issue of video games preservation, we’d like to address it properly, so that you, and every other GOG community member, can be sure what can happen to your games in case of unexpected events, such as death.”

One significant challenge GOG highlighted is the anonymity of its users. “GOG does not collect information sufficient to truly identify a particular person (such as name and surname) or their family or marital status. For this reason, we are not able to establish that someone is related to a particular user or that a particular user has passed away,” the statement explained.

However, GOG is open to working with legal documents to transfer accounts. “In general, your GOG account and GOG content is not transferable. However, if you can obtain a copy of a court order that specifically entitles someone to your GOG personal account… we’ll do our best to make it happen.”

GOG also emphasized its willingness to cooperate: “We’re willing to handle such situations and preserve your GOG library, but currently need the help of the justice system.”

GOG added: “it’s worth mentioning, however, that GOG game builds are DRM-free and offline installers are included with each purchase – that way, if someone wants to save their offline games on, for example, an external hard drive, they will be preserved regardless of the account ownership.”

This announcement comes after Steam confirmed its own policy on the matter. Steam’s customer support stated, “Steam accounts and games are non-transferable. Steam support can’t provide someone else with access to the account or merge its contents with another account. Your Steam account cannot be transferred via a will.”

I also contacted Epic Games for its store policy on account inheritance, but so far, I haven’t heard back. I did receive a response from customer service, which I am sharing below. Note that this response is from someone who is clearly a non-English speaking person and may not have correctly understood the question. Anyway, from what I could understand, Epic Games does not allow account transfers in case of death.

As it stands, GOG is the least problematic store when it comes to account inheritance and preservation due to its willingness to cooperate, and no DRM.

A_Wild_VelociFaptor on June 2nd, 2024 at 01:05 UTC »

Why do we need Steam/GOG to specifically say that we can share accounts?

Is it that annoying to write down your login and keep it somewhere secure for your next of kin to find?

underlordd on June 2nd, 2024 at 00:51 UTC »

GOG is the only storefront id consider ditching Steam for.

iNfANTcOMA on June 1st, 2024 at 23:47 UTC »

Good guy GOG at it again:

However, GOG is open to working with legal documents to transfer accounts. “In general, your GOG account and GOG content is not transferable. However, if you can obtain a copy of a court order that specifically entitles someone to your GOG personal account… we’ll do our best to make it happen