That question is kind of complex imo. I think it's positive that they picked a platform that's not mainstream. On the other hand, I wonder what they were thinking since "alternative" platforms always end up being the cesspool of Internet. I can't see how any company would want their brand to be associated with that.

Too bad that there's no middle road out there that's all for free speech without turning into a total dump.

GOG will be just fine.

The concept of DRM-free revolves around not just being able to play your games without any DRM hassle, but also having easy access to them via a back up you made for yourself instead of having to re-download the game every time you want to reinstall it.

It is up to the user to back their games up.

About the specific doomsday scenario of GOG or any other digital games store folding, the truth is that nobody knows what would actually happen. Nobody plans for failure, it just happens.

TLDR: Back up your games, or at least your favorite games.

I'm still surprised how much panic this has caused. IIRC, this whole mess came from a Kotaku article and Kotaku doesn't exactly have a stellar record when it comes to fact checking.

Moral of the story is: Don't believe anything you read on Kotaku. If you didn't check facts on the article, good chance they didn't either. In Journalism, being first is more profitable than being correct.

Whatever is or isn't going on with GOG, I think it is more interesting what is going on in the gaming industry in general. Some people have said that the industry is in a crash right now. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPJ50zIn9Fs

And if it is the case that the industry is in a crash, I think that gamers could benefit by some of those money grabbing strategies being self-viewed by the gaming industry as no longer effective for their profits, maybe getting some major game developers back to concentrating on making good games that gamers want to play and buy, rather than pushng superficial hype and content that gamers no longer want to buy. Or it could have an oppositie effect where game companies push more for gaming in the cloud, for example, attempting to exert more control over gamers. And maybe it will be the case that we see a mix of strategies.

[1] As for the suggestion to "automatically" hide a post with a particular accumulation of negative feedback, a bunch of sock puppets would be all that is needed for a strategic redaction of one person's disliked opinion.

Unfortunately, meta-gaming the system is the default cognitive response displayed by people who dislike a result it produces. ("Not my president,"say the undemocratic Democrats, after a popular vote goes against their wishes.)

[2] This is an interesting idea: transparency will do wonders for crapflooding reviews to blacken the popularity of listed games. Just like the voting records of representatives in the US congress, if each (registered) vote is tallied, and summaries of voters preferences published (for other registered users to see only), this might help keep the system a little more honest.

Actually, each user's votes would need to be private, unless shared, and each particular game would list those who voted each way. That way, one could defray known trouble-makers, and also understand the voting pattern (according to the opinion of those who you dis/like); e.g., there is a movie reviewer whose opinion I almost always disagree with, so whenever he posts a positive review I know that I will probably hate the movie. :D