Hey all, GOG user of many years here.
I read a recent article where the GOG.com store was reported to have made a loss in the most recent financial year. The article mentioned that GOG.com would pivot and go back to its roots for DRM-free and classic games retrofitted for modern systems.

I have a fair amount of money wrapped up in my GOG library.
Do you have any concerns about the future of the platform, and of your purchases?

Cheers
Jupiter

Please go here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/cd_projekt_strategy_and_development_of_the_company_financial_results_suggestions_by_armchair_ceos

or here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/does_gog_face_its_end

The future is always a mystery. And unexpected and unforeseen things can indeed happen... Both good or bad.
This applies for GOG as well as for steam.

My only advice is for you to back up all your games offline installers in a safe space. Even if nothing happens to GOG, it's always good to have backup.

As for me - a guy who's got 1500+ games on his library - I'll keep doing what I've done so far:
Support the GOG store with my wallet.

The future's bright, the future's Orange, apparently. Whatever that means...

One has nothing to do with the other, that's the whole point of DRM free offline installers.

People usually tend to overreact. I see no real problem but ofc there have to be changes to the store and especially more attention to getting updates for some games which i personally think scares away some people who don't like to do research and knowing reliable developers, pay more attention to avoid Hitman 2016 fiascos etc.

Still the CD Projekt Group had a super strong Q3 2021 despite an acquisition and hire spree for employees which itself is more important than a single wing of the group and publish your own games on your own platform is something i think they want to retain.

I wonder how many people both think they should back up all their stuff, remember to do it and have the resources to do it.

None of GOG's public statements mentioned anything about going back to classic games retrofitted for modern systems.

If any article you read said that, then it's misreporting on the author's part.

As for GOG promising to re-embrace DRM-free: at the moment, those are hollow, empty words that amount to nothing more than PR-Speak fluff meant to calm down & appease shareholders and GOG customers amidst GOG's very bad financial condition.

But GOG's continued & deliberate inactions on that front contradict their rosy warm words.

GOG made no promise to remove CDPR's own DRM from Cyberpunk 2077, for example, nor did GOG make any promise to cancel their deal to sell DRM-infested EGS store games through GOG Galaxy.

These things are why the very wise old saying, "talk is cheap", is very apt for this situation.

Finally, yes, I am very concerned that GOG could, and might well, declare bankruptcy & totally shutdown within the next few years.

And if they don't back up their meaningless warm words with concrete actions (i.e. removing DRM from Cyberpunk 2077 and canceling the EGS deal, for starters), then it's very likely that they will shutdown sooner rather than later. That's not entirely true. Even having a backup, or two, or three, or more, of all your games, that doesn't automatically make your games secure. All backup hardware has the potential to fail, and often does.

And if it is on any sort of physical media, then it can also be lost in fire, stolen, destroyed by natural disasters like floods or tornadoes, etc. etc.

No matter how many backup copies one has, the owner having the games available to them forever via GOG's servers will always provide way more security for their GOG library than will just having backup copies but with zero access to GOG's servers.

Therefore, if GOG goes offline for good, then it's bad news for anyone who ever bought any game on GOG.

probabyl they will cut costs as usually happen

what egs deal? imho gog should merge into egs

This, entirely. People overreact so much with this service. I listened to the investor meeting myself instead of just going by trash clickbait journalists and what I heard was actually pretty good news. CD Projekt showed clear interest in supporting GOG and helping it grow. My only concern is over the future of Galaxy, which I'm hoping they'll hand development of it off to CDPR so GOG themselves can focus on the site and the service.

I'm not worried about GOG in the least, as it's clear CD Projekt has a bright future in mind for GOG, I'm just mildly uncertain about the future of Galaxy. Being a big fan of Galaxy, I'd hate to see it be abandoned. It's bad enough we don't really receive any updates as it is.