You laugh, but the Pirate Bay lost three servers to møøse-related incidents!

And yet you're thinking about it all from our side of things. If they know they'll close the doors, they'll likely give notice so you can back-up whatever you can in the month or two before they close. They'll stop selling games and keep the download servers up for a short while. After that it's good luck chuck.

That is completely beside the point. The very least, you can continue playing them on the system for which you originally bought it (and most probably many compatible future systems too).

Plus. new options may quite well arise that you can continue running them also with future incompatible systems. Think of DOSBox, PCem, WINE, ScummVM etc. Take for example my original MS-DOS game installations that I originally started playing like 25 years ago (floppy versions of Red Baron, Wing Commander 1-2, Sierra adventures etc.). When I moved on from Win98SE to Win2000/XP, yeah I couldn't really run them anymore (on modern systems)... until one day, DOSBox appeared.

Then suddenly I could once again run those early 90s games that I had had with me for many many years, along with my original save games, user-made content etc.

I've heard that one before, and already then I asked: where is such a Steam emulator which lets me play all my Steam CEG games offline (forgetting the 3rd party DRM for now)?

If it was so simple as you and Gabe Newell make it sound, I'd presume such an universal (unofficial) Steam emulator would exist already, as I am 100% there are already now lots of people liking such an idea (like casual pirates who'd like to play their friends' Steam games on their own PC).

And remember, I am talking about an universal Steam/CEG emulator that works with all Steam/CEG games, not just one or some of them.

Not sure if Desura counts, but it seemed quite popular as far as I could tell.

However, your scenario is not quite that realistic anyway. A popular digital store having massive amounts of paying customers, suddenly folding down like that, taking everyone by surprise?

Sure, I guess it could happen... but a much more realistic scenario is that the service has been losing users and games for a long time, and has been kinda slowly imploding.

So in a case like GOG or Steam, I'd figure there would be warning signs long before like them not being able to attract any more games and publishers to the store, the forums quieting down... and finally when the news arrived about the closure, most former users would react "Oh? They were still around?".

DotEmu was somewhat like that. I don't think they had acquired new games to their store for quite some time, the store and its forums were pretty much dead for a very long time... and then one day they announced they are closing the digital store. I was a bit sad as I saw them as GOG's "little sister" (even if they mostly were direct competitors I guess), but not really surprised at all.

I am unsure how e.g. GamerGate is doing today. I do get newsletter and promotion emails from them, but I haven't visited them for ages... and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they suddenly announced they are closing the store. It had become somewhat pointless store, another Steam key seller site. I still recall when they felt relevant.

Section 17.3 of GOG's Terms & Conditions specifically grants users (note: that's "users" not "subscribers") the right to legally continue to use any offline installers they have in the event GOG goes out of business:-

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-User-Agreement

Multiple GOG members of staff have reaffirmed that means your license to play doesn't expire in the event the cloud version / GOG disappears.

^ Including yourself if you think a licensed offline copy and a torrented pirated version are "the same". It's probably best to give the constant sarcastic anti-anti-DRM sniping a rest for a while until you can at least bother to read the same T&C's yourself that you're trying and failing to "interpret", eh?

It's highly unlikely Steam will go bankrupt but then neither did Microsoft when they pulled the plug on Games For Windows Live (and Zune Marketplace before that). Steam is "Gabe's life" but what happens post-Gabe? He's approaching his 60's, is severely overweight and doesn't keep himself in the best of shape. Suppose the worst happens in 5-10 years time and his widow (Lisa Mennet Newell) inherits his majority share of Valve. Would a retired elderly woman in her mid to late 60's with little interest in gaming want to keep it running the next 20-30 years vs enjoying retirement? Being a privately owned corporation with no public shareholders to be held accountable to, she could pull the plug anytime or more likely sell it to perhaps EA who over time will convert Steam-Origin into just Origin. "Steam will be around forever exactly as it is now". I remember people saying exactly the same things 25 years ago about AOL & Compuserve being the two default "gatekeepers" of the Internet. The only true constant in the universe is change, and "post-Gabe", anything could happen.

you're screwed, thats all

THIS is screwed.
GOG closing IS NOT.

THIS is screwed.
GOG closing IS NOT.

THIS is screwed.
GOG closing IS NOT.

Any questions?

I don't know, but I wouldn't believe them anyways. I back up my stuff locally so I don't really care either...

Depends. If Microsoft keeps making MS Store more and more prevalent in future Windows versions, and playing "legacy desktop games" (ie. Win32 games) from other stores starts more and more feeling like playing MS-DOS games in Windows 98SE...

...that would be really bad news to Steam/Valve. As well as GOG, Epic Store, EA Origin, UPlay etc. (unless UPlay goes all the way to streaming gaming as they have suggested, in which case it doesn't really matter on which platform you play their games).

There is a reason Valve has invested so much to Linux gaming (it is their plan B, if what I said above becomes reality), and also Gabe as well as some others have voiced their bitter opinions about Windows 8/10, due to MS Store. Gabe has realized ever since Windows 8 that in the long term it is a real thread to the existence of Steam.

There has been lots of discussion about this before, and I have no doubt on my mind that the master plan of MS is that by default everyone will buy their future software (games and everything else) through the MS Store. They just need to make Win32 less and less relevant (new features to UWP that will not released to Win32 etc.), making usage of Win32 applications and games more cumbersome etc. Just look at Windows 10 S. They are constantly testing the waters...

Unless Microsoft have their way and totally lock down Windows to only allow apps from their store, and make that the only Windows version that works (which will not happen, as they would get the biggest backlash ever.) Then the Microsoft Store taking off is not going to happen anytime soon.

MS can push it all they want it still lacks alot of basic features, the design is terrible and its a closed system. And games that are still sold there get abandoned by the developers still. It brings nothing new and is just a much more worse version of Steam.

Edit typo.

MS has tried to nudge the Windows world at least twice already towards that, first with Windows RT, and later with Windows 10 S. They were (are) experiments to test how ready the Windows users are for the master plan, and MS backtracked from them when they saw fit. I am quite sure they will keep trying.

MS is not stupid. Naturally they are not going to try to achieve it overnight, but little by little. Make Win32 less and less relevant and UWP more and more relevant, bit by bit.

Same as with MS-DOS. Home users didn't want to move to Windows NT because that would have meant not being able to run all their favorite MS-DOS software (like games etc.). Microsoft introduced Windows 95 with the ability to run also MS-DOS software (sometimes directly from Windows, and if all else fails, even booting out of Windows 9x into a real MS-DOS mode).

At the same time MS made sure MS-DOS is becoming less relevant and people would more and more do also their gaming in Win32. instead of MS-DOS. Developers migrated to Windows as well, and in the late 90s stopped making MS-DOS games altogether.

Then, when the time was ripe, MS released Windows XP where you couldn't run MS-DOS games anymore. People didn't care that much anymore as most of them were running solely Windows software only at that point.

With the case on Win32 => UWP, it makes even more sense to MS as that will definitely mean more income to them too if in the future people will buy their PC software and games through the MS Store, and not Steam, GOG, whatever. The same how people buy their Android software mostly from Google Play, or their iOS games from AppStore.

Uh what? no ms dos games work fine in XP. They work fine in Windows 10.

Thhats why I said not going to happen anytime soon. They will push that no doubt with Windows 11, as their goal is to create a closed echo system.

And I know Microsoft said No more versions of Windows, but it will happen as theres no way they can dramtically do this under 10, as people will just revert to Linux or Windows 7/8 if they do. And MS seem to be in the mind they want to forget the past totally. Tbh I still think they should just do a Windows Classic, as well as Windows and Windows Critical.

It speaks for itself, but anyway we are greatly getting off topic with Microsofts issues. This is about GOG and their games.

Going back to topic, i'm going to get a 4TB exernal drive and just back everything up to that. But I do fail to see what the point of the topic is, as what else is there to do with digital only games?

Edit:

DosBox yes, nativaly no as Windows hasn't had DOS for ages. At most it as a Command Prompt and that is not DOS.

No they don't. Are you thinking of DOSBox? That's like claiming Nintendo 64 games run just fine in Windows. Sure they do... as long as you use an emulator (and a pirated copy of a N64 game). Totally beside the point.

To test your claim, I just went to Windows 7 command prompt and tried to play Red Baron MS-DOS version, by running BARON.COM. It gave me an error: