this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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There is none in the way of a transfer. Neither Steam nor GOG will give you a copy of the game in exchange for another platform's copy, nor give you a copy on a competing platform in exchange for theirs.
This boils down to if your method of ownership supports it, you can do it. Neither Steam nor GOG support it. A physical disk copy would support it, for instance, so you'd be entirely allowed to transfer ownership of your physical disk copy of the game.
Excellent breakdown. This almost definitely only applies to the Deluxe Edition that is a physical copy.
Steam explicitly doesn't let you give your account away or sell it, likely because they service so many different companies, that it would be impossible to handle the licensing changeover for all your games. It's still frustrating, but it also makes a little sense, considering each game is often owned by a series of different companies.
I'll only buy digital games if I get them at garbage bin sale prices. If I can't sell it when I'm done, I'll only pay an amount small enough that I wouldn't go through the trouble of selling it.
With GOG, you could theoretically download the offline installer, give that to someone else and then ask GOG support to remove BG3 from your account, and be fully abiding with the EULA conditions.
But that wouldn't give you a Steam copy, which is the scenario I was describing, along with the inverse mentioned in the original comment. There is no method supported by GOG or Steam to transfer a game to a competing platform.
Also in your case, the receiver would only have that one offline installer, the game wouldn't be in their GOG library, and they wouldn't get future updates.
Steam does support it. A long time back, I was still new to Steam, and activated a key on a second account I'd created. I opened a support case, told them I'd activated it on the wrong account, and asked them to transfer it. They did.
That's a transfer within the platform, very different from the scenarios I described. There is no method supported by GOG or Steam to transfer a game to a competing platform.
You can't open a support case and tell them "sorry I actually wanted this game on GOG, can you transfer it to my account there?". At best you could ask for a refund, obviously if you've played the game enough you wouldn't even be able to ask for that.