I had to practice that a lot on my tablet.
Comfortable for sure. Some angry contractor broke into police headquarters and stole all their toilets.

The cops had nothing to go on.

Perfect blues...

And once again, you completely miss the point. Your context does not matter. The source of the game code is totally, completely and without question, irrelevant. The storefront has no means of determining where or how you got codes, because there is nothing at all unique about a free code compared to a paid code. It is just a dumb shopping cart, hence why people have been able to redeem "stolen" game codes in the past (GOG would later remove those games from individual libraries). That shopping cart is "protected" from mass fraud sales by a captcha that is also completely unaware of the source of your codes. All it knows is that a shopping cart asked for a captcha verification. In order to provide the exception you asked for in the manner you asked for, under GOG's current system a user who meets your requirements would have captcha completely disabled after completing a single good transaction, leaving the entire system open for the exact exploitation I described, not just for a check box free redemption of a gift from GOG. There is no way to do what you want without completely overhauling the entire checkout/shopping cart system, as well as the code issuing system. That is not worth the effort, just to eliminate the unbelievably mild inconvenience of a checkbox that is only inconvenient for some people a week or two out of the year at most.

So you agree with me after all that it is conceptually possible for GOG to not use the captcha system for the given use case without sacrificing security. Only you hide this agreement behind your stated beliefs about how complicated it would be to make such a system and your opinion that that would not be worth it.

Edit: So why dont you properly express yourself like: "I believe that it would be very complictated for GOG to do what you want. And I have the opinion that that would not be worth it."

Conceptually, almost anything is possible, but in reality, that is not necessarily the case. Conceptually, I could build myself a spaceship, launch it from my back yard and fly to Mars, but in reality that is only a bit more ridiculous than what you are asking for from GOG. At least a personal mission to Mars might serve some kind of tangible and rewarding purpose, unlike this effort.

Trying to ridicule me with spaceships is not going to make you look good.
Where do you have this knowledge from that it would be very hard for GOG to (for example) have the "Redeem" button on the front page directly redeem the game to the library. BTW: The part of the front page with the "Redeem" buttons is not a dumb store front which does not know where the codes come from - it actually knows exactly where they come from.
Alternately the system would only have to support a "redeem code X to user Y" command scheme. With the help of encryption this could not be abused seriously. For a competent programmer it would be simple to program it. Example use: When creating front page it tags the button for "Redeem" with the command "redeem code X to user Y" with X being the code for the "free" game and Y being the user who bought in the autumn sale. The command is encrypted with a key from GOG so that only GOG can create/encrypt and decrypt such commands. A competent programmer could make the server parts of that in a few hours. The webpage shouldnt be difficult either (and there is no security risk because server and concept take care of that).


GOG Forum killed my post?

It shows "What is with the GOG captcha? 2 min. ago" but no post here?

So once again, for the sole purpose of removing an insignificant and completely harmless nuisance, you would have GOG task its limited staff with essentially creating a whole new storefront and code redemption system? How can you not see the ridiculousness of that task? Don't even get me started on the incredible oversimplification of what you just posted (you completely left out the fact that freebies are often giftable codes, making your "magic button" a gigantic mistake and frequently useless and you obviously don't understand that the shopping cart with the captcha is a separate component from that redeem button). If GOG was already working on some kind of overhaul for legitimate reasons, by all means, they should deal with this nuisance if they feel it is important enough, but to suggest that this alone is worth GOG's scrapping of the existing working system for a whole new and all-different system is beyond laughable. Way more laughable than my spaceship.

Yeah, I got notification of your reply, but there was nothing visible in the thread. Used to happen a lot in the past, but one of the forum updates supposedly fixed it a long time ago. The fact that it happened again is not a very good sign.

There is no need for creating a "whole new storefront". On the frontend side: All GOG would need to do is:
a) replace the "Redeem" button with one new type of button per game there
b) make it possible to copy the code next to it to the clipboard (the copying is not guarded by captcha)
c) displaying the success/failure (the backend server provides that) of clicking the button after doing the clicking
I am talking about the popup on the main page which comes after clicking "unlocked" - if that was unclear. Disclaimer: I am not a user interface designer and there may be better ways of doing it.

On the backend side (was that unclear?): There is only a need for a server which can do the following 3 things:
a) encrypt the 2 components into one string/message
b) turn such a message into a redeem
c) construct a success (or failure) html to display after clicking the button

I am talking about getting a "free" game due to my purchases for myself. You are right in that the "magic button" which I came up here is not meant for gifting codes to somebody else. I do not want to guess on exactly how many %% of users do that (redeem themselves) but it obviously is high enough to properly consider them. The whole point of the magic button here is that by making it and using it the generic redeem interface is no longer necessary for the use case: get a "free" game due to my purchases for myself. I see no additional complexity. Feel free to point it out if you still believe it to be there. And using the existing interface for the use case "gift code to somebody else" would obviously still work.

With the aptly (by you!) named magic button there is no need for scrapping/replacing the existing system to accomodate the use case of getting the 'free" game for myself.

Um didn't folks say that the login captcha only shows if you put in a wrong password a few times? Why not have the the same thing for the redeem page?

I have a complaint about the faulty GOG captcha system. Since I was suckered into buying enough crap to get a free code for Banished, I happily tuckered to the redeem page to add the game to my collection.

Out of nowhere, GOG presents me with a screen full of mediocre food photos and asks me to select all the "sandwiches". There was only one sandwich on the screen so I marked that. The captcha system didn't let me pass, claiming that I didn't mark all the sandwiches. It turns out I had to select the 2 hamburgers as well. If I understand correctly, hamburgers aren't considered sandwiches anymore, not in normal everyday use. Go to any restaurant / fast food joint and you'll quickly abolish your theoretical but impractical "hamburgers are a type of sandwich duh" categorizations.

LOL. "Meat between slices of bread" is pretty much the classic definition of "sandwich". Perhaps some restaurants don't (for some reason) categorize them as such -- I would guess because there's enough variation in ways to "do" burgers that it's easier to give them their own section of the menu -- but I (and Google, apparently) would certainly say they're sandwiches. : )

But then there's cheese/egg sandwiches and vegan sandwiches (falafel, sprouts and whatnot)

If you go to any self-respecting burger house and order a "sandwich" they'll frown and protest "we're a burger house!", or at the very least give you puzzled/pitiful looks and send you over to Subway.

True -- that's why I said "classic definition". ; ) The term has evolved to include pretty much any foodstuff contained between (or even folded or rolled up in) slices/sheafs/etc. of some bread-like substance.

Well, no, one wouldn't ask for a burger by calling it a "ground beef [or whatever meat] patty sandwich", but hamburgers are, nonetheless, a type of sandwich. If you're in a burger joint, you order a burger. The "sandwich" part needn't be stated; it's implicitly understood. : )

This reminds me of a co-worker at my first job (YEARS ago now), who once insisted that a popular rock band he liked wasn't a rock band at all, they were "alternative". XD

My whole life I have looked at burgers and sandwiches as separate categories because they are always listed separately on menus. I've never seen burgers listed under sandwiches. Even if, scientifically speakingIy, burgers are a subtype of sandwich I think the problem is that this captcha was made by a computer person who thinks in strict hierarchies whereas a normal user who just wants to quickly get past a captcha can walk right into a trap just like I did.

It's a bit like showing photos of animals and saying "mark all the mammals" and then throwing in a dolphin just to trap all the people who in their casual shopping mode might forget that dolphins are mammals, too. Even if they go on the seafoods menu.

Or even better, ask them to "mark all the seafood sandwiches" and then throw in a dolphin burger, that will definitely throw some people off. A captcha should take user psychology into account, it's not an inductive reasoning IQ test or whatnot, I just wanted to redeem a code, not deal with hamwiches and sandburgers etc. On the other hand, I'm fortunate to have such problems!

Throw in a dolphin burger, and you'd have a whole other problem on your hands: animal rights activists. =D

Honestly, I didn't intend for this to become a big debate. I allow that maybe in Germany or other places, "sandwich" is a mutually exclusive category to "hamburger", so maybe this seems strange to you for a reason. I'm not going by how menus categorize things, either (as that's more about convenience and advertising than logic or reason), so that also is part of our difference. The bottom line is, we may as well agree to cordially disagree. Though I agree that that style of Captcha is a frustrating (though effective, I imagine) way of proving you're not a piece of software. =)

EDIT: PHRASING.