Are the GOG games I pay for and download going to continue to operate independently of GOG if GOG ever shuts down? And even if GOG never shuts down, if I decide to cancel my GOG account, will the games I payed for and downloaded still work independently?

Yup. Just be sure to backup your offline installer downloads for whatever OS you need.

Yes!

This is the beuty of DRM-Free my friend.

yup. just remember that newer updates of those same games may NOT work for windows 7 - keep the ones the currently do just in case and yer sorted! :)

The short answer is your games will work fine, if they are single player. However some (most?) multiplayer games required GOG Galaxy, and that requires an active GOG account.

That depends on the game. Some games on GOG, even singleplayer games, have DRM'ed content which is gated behind a DRM gate, which is the GOG Galaxy client software, and for those games, no, you will not be getting 100% of their content to run independently of GOG, and as far as I know, you will also not be able to backup that DRM'ed content of those games either.

Ok understood.

I have Wing Commander 4, Empire Earth 2 Gold Edition, Star Wars Shadows of the Empire and Terra Nova Strike Force.

With the above-mentioned in mind, I only intend to play them single player, ( I dont think they are available in multiplayer and dont care about updates), would these games fall into the catagory of "Independent of GOG?"

Please advise as soon as is convenient.

Thank you

As far as I know, there are no issues with those games.

This post has more complete info if you're worried:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1

You will never have problems with these old DOS classics. In order for a game to potentially have some content locked behind an authentification mechanism, the original game must have had that. And these oldies don't.
Ind the list above you will only find newer games.

If you "own" these games or not, that's a legal debate, but it's a fact that nobody will take them from you if you delete your account.

Excellent link Weyen.

Thank you so very much for the information!!!!
Thank you for your input. DEFINITELY APPRECIATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I probably don't need to add this, but if you ever do think about deleting your account, make sure you have downloaded everything you want to keep first as you lose access online once the account has been deleted.

Of course, given there is no charge to having a GoG account, I always find it surprising when people want to delete their accounts.

Just from a legal point of view it would be questionable, if the person then would still entitled to play the games.
Of course no one can stop this person from doing it, but I think all licences are bound to the account and not to the person.

(edited for typos and grammar)

That's why you should download your GOG games ASAP.
If you don't backup your own games, no one will.