Judging from their recent fiscal reports, probably not what they're doing now.

What do you think would help them stay in business another decade or even just a few more years?

GOG is owned by CD Projekt which still has good financial results in overall. Does anyone worry about the condition of Epic Games Store which operates on huge losses since its beginning? Despite that no one suggests that it can go out of business. The recent GOG results can be disturbing indeed, but the company is not on its own. I suspect though that some changes will have to be undertaken to minimize the loss. Keep in mind that the sales revenues are not that bad. The problem lies in big selling costs. If these are reduced somehow, GOG will make a profit.

Understatement.

Exactly what's making up most of the higher selling costs, and what has changed vs previous years when it was lower?
- Abuse of the more generous refund policy?
- Cyberpunk 2077 (more support staff needed)?
- Galaxy (development costs + higher back-end infrastructure costs like needing additional servers for cloud saves, achievements, doubling the size of storage requirements (Galaxy + online installer versions) vs the pre Galaxy situation)?

I think the real question isn't "What if CDPR goes bankrupt", but rather it's entirely possible for a parent company to decide that "some changes will have to be undertaken to minimize the loss" to a subsidiary's unprofitable business model as in "we can reduce GOG's selling costs by halving storage requirements. And we can do that by scrapping offline installers..."

I don't think that's possible because (at least presumably) the parent company aren't idiots and are aware that that would instantly kill GOG because it would eliminate the one and only reason people buy games here over the alternatives. That wouldn't be a cost reduction, but outright killing the business.

It wouldn't surprise me. I have heard first-hand accounts of decisions just as stupid killing a company, from people who were smart enough to see the signs and jump ship in time.
Sometimes the person in charge is such a idiot that they don't think of consequences extending past the end of the current month. Many questionable decisions have been made by CDP in the last few years regarding Gog. It doesn't inspire confidence.

But I think it's more likely that the head honcho will decide to sell Gog rather than just lower hardware costs. If it happens we have no idea what will happen to the DRM-free stance. Depending on who's the new owner, they might scrap it for good.

I would love to know this as well. It seems like a true mystery when there seems to never be any visible investment in the site (other than the front page). I can only assume: Galaxy?

The best option for GOG, imo. It's become painfully obvious that the current ownership don't care a jot any more about DRM-free. Please sell it to someone who does!

What a joke statement. The only reason GOG was created was the success of the Witcher series and then the will from CDPR to sell their products outside Steam/brick-and-mortar shops to get more money from sales. GOG rode on the success of CDPR games and in weak years on money from CDPR to stay afloat. They would be closed in one year after sale you propose. Not to mention this proposal is childlisch from legal reasons.

Believe me I don't want it to be true, but ever since GOG started rejecting support tickets for older offline installer builds, and responded with "Just use Galaxy", I feel that's where it's going to end up. Just looking for the right excuse at the right time.

If CDPR ever sell GOG, I think it's far more likely to end up in the hands of a company with deep pockets that are happy to run stores as "loss leaders" to expand their existing market share, ie, expect Microsoft or Epic Games to buy it and "transition" GOG customers into their own stores far more than some independent buyer who'll keep it "as is"...

I am no expert by any means and it would be presumptuous of me to act as an advisor, but were I to be forced to make the decisions, what I would do would be:

1) I don't think GOG can or should compete on price, so it should instead compete on quality, which it currently sorely lacks. I would invest in building GOG as a quality brand, with rapid support (i.e. minutes and hours, not weeks and months), curated catalogue (see below), quality information and buying experience (i.e. a careful website overhaul, leaving the good things, but fixing or removing the bad), increased professional but friendly interaction with the customers, more good (not cheap) PR. I would go for the loveable and dependable quality maverick image, and try to harness the existing community in propagating the image.

2) I believe GOG's strong point is its curation, which while always subjective, can still give it a harnessable image of quality. So, while maintaining curation, I would attempt to diversify into neglected categories, such as:
a) DRM games: Yes, DRM games. I don't think the die-hard DRM-free crowd is that big and we already know what they (we) will do when GOG introduces a bit of DRM. Nothing. As long as the percentage of DRM games is small (e.g. 10%) and clearly marked, I think GOG should be fine.
b) Quality casual games, such as hidden object, match 3, solitaire, clicker, visual novels, etc.. Even from non-Polish developers. Stressing quality here.
c) Perhaps pornographic games (as they seem to be thinking about), although I am personally ambivalent about it.

3) Reduce investment in galaxy, without abandoning it. I know that a lot of people use it, but I don't believe it's a good source of income. The website would be a better choice, IMO.

4) Invest in PR. Real PR, that is. That promotes a quality image.

But what do I know...

Well, access to older game versions in general is more of a nice to have when it comes to digital distribution. You are forced to use only the latest version in 99% of cases. This is actually one of the main reasons I still prefer retail over anything digital, because I can get a 1.0 version of a game (or very close to it) and update it as I see fit. Galaxy has the rollback feature (although only a couple of versions back), which is why I assume they refer you to it in this case. Do we even know if GOG archives all the older installer builds? They might not to reduce space requirements.

Having that feature somehow available for offline installers would be nice although I don't see a practical way to achieve this. But expecting GOG to host and offer downloads of every single previous installer version for a given game doesn't seem feasible. Especially when it's so popular these days to release a game and spam patches every week after release.

To me, everything goes back to having a consistent DRM-free message. This would ultimately entail focusing on offline installers, telling devs/pubs to remove DRM/online connection elements from games or take them off the store, and discontinuing - yes, discontinuing - Galaxy. Remember, GOG has discontinued any number of other things, both for good and bad, over the years. A common complaint is the move to Galaxy 2.0, so you could say this has precedent even amid Galaxy itself. Ultimately, "the mother of all clients" and "100% DRM-free gaming" are not compatible concepts.

I would say that, like Cyberpunk online-gated content, GWENT, etc, such ideas like Galaxy should be kept to another website or webstore. In other words, it is essentially "fine" to me that something like GWENT exists on mobile (even though imo it really shouldn't and mobile should be DRM-free games too), but when it is on "the dedicated DRM-free store" it is out of place. GOG Galaxy should've been "CDPR Galaxy" or some such app, off-site from GOG.com. It should have never been integrated with installers and games, as if nothing else it causes brand confusion.

Consider how when GOG ran the FCKDRM.com campaign, that was a separate website. But, "the mother of all clients" is all over this one. Completely backwards.

Other than like 2 or 3 of them I would assume not... I sometimes try to archive them myself but I am missing a few for the game I want to have them for the most (terraria.)