GOG.com has a new GOG Connect service. It allows users to connect their Steam account to their GOG account and import eligible games from their Steam account to their GOG account. It’s really cool, since it means you don’t have to re-buy the game from GOG if you already own it on Steam. In light of starting the new GOG Connect service, the company also had to update their privacy policy and user agreement policy.
In an e-mail sent out to GOG users who may wish to use the new GOG Connect service, they stated the following…
“Privacy Policy: For you to use our GOG Connect service we will need to access your Steam Data. There are some legal rules that Valve requires us to follow regarding this—you’ll find more info in the full Privacy Policy on our site.”
“User Agreement: Our optional GOG Connect service is subject to Valve legal rules—please follow them. Check out the GOG Connect section of our Privacy Policy for more info.”
This is further detailed in section 13.3 of the GOG.com user agreement policy, where they break down exactly why the agreement was updated and what it entails for those who use GOG Connect and want to import their Steam library…
“This (optional) feature is provided subject to Valve’s Steam Web API Terms of Use and therefore access to this feature and how it works may change if necessary to reflect those Terms of Use. Please also see section [9.3] of our Privacy Policy, which explains how we use ‘Steam Data’ and contains important liability provisions regarding it. Please comply fully with those Terms of Use, since any breach of them could have negative consequences for this feature and will also be considered an irremediable material breach of this User Agreement.”
In essence, you have to comply to GOG’s privacy policy to use Connect, and you have to comply to Steam’s terms of service if you want to import your games from Steam to GOG.
The GOG Connect is an experiment right now. Some publishers have been allowing their games to be connected from Steam to GOG, so that they’re DRM-free. Not every publisher and developer is on board with this, and some games may appear or may be removed from the list, so eligibility for importing games from Steam to GOG will be an actual work in progress.
The service so far has been popular enough that a lot of users managed to cripple the service when it first opened due to the load. Over the next couple of days it should all even out so that gamers should be able to conveniently move over certain titles in their Steam library to their GOG library. And no, you can’t buy a game on Steam, import it to GOG and then get a refund on Steam in hopes of keeping it on GOG. They have safeguards in place to prevent this feature from being exploited.
For more information be sure to visit the GOG Connect web page.
