I would simply do what I did before GOG (and keep doing even now): buy DRM-free games elsewhere ;)

I already can’t buy the vast majority of games because of the DRM they are polluted with, so that would not be a huge change.

It would be a pity if GOG dies because they are the only company right now that actually lets you have offline copies of your game. You don't have to access your games behind a service, you can just install them any time you want, just like back before Steam showed up and popularized this Games as a Service nonsense.

Also, GOG doesn't ask for your address and billing information if you use wallet credit, which is something Steam does that I find bothersome.

Indeed, friend.

It would be a hard blow if gog were to go :p

gog gets roughly 90% of my yearly gaming monnies so, yes, that would have a dramatic impact on my gaming life.

I think gog is mostly limping along just fine. Naturally "limping along just fine" doesn't grant gog any latitude for changes and improvements in which concerns the infrastructure. I know this frustrates a lot of folks but frankly i don't care if gog for all eternity remains a buggy, quirky, low-fi venue, it's enough for me to see drm-free games coming in every week even when they're titles of no particular interest to me. Pretty webpages, nice forums, cool libraries et al were not that which made me gravitate towards gog after all and when it comes to that which made me gravitate towards gog, a lifetime ago, gog has long surpassed even my most optimistic expectations.

Things are rough. While outside these walls the outlook on gog still seems to be favorable i think that the drm-free buzz and even a slight "militancy" that could be felt outside these walls a while back has died down for the most part and the world has now gone back to not giving a shit. I think Galaxy also didn't do gog any favors in that regard, it seems to have somewhat diluted the drm-free distinction in people's minds.

I guess we'll see.

I've said this before

GOG biggest problems are COMMUNICATION and TIMING, and fixing both of them would make a huge difference to GOG's bottom line.

Its not the smaller user base that is hurting GOG the most, but rather if it looks like a desired game isn't coming to GOG, most of its user base will buy elsewhere. Yes there are people like me that will wait, or not buy on Steam, and there are double dippers, but the vast majority will simply buy one copy elsewhere.

Which is why I say COMMUNICATION and TIMING is what is killing GOG.

Communication isn't just GOG not saying GameX is coming, but pubs and Devs also not being willing or able to say GameX is coming to GOG. GOG needs to streamline its curation process so it can say sooner that a game will definitely be coming to GOG. The also need to incentivise companies to include GOG in their marketing.

Timing is the release window. We get games days, weeks, months or years after Steam. Even for games where a GOG release is assured, there are plenty of times we don't get a concurrent release with Steam. But this whole situation is made worse with poor communication. If it was made 100% clear GameX is coming to GOG, but it will be a little later than Steam, I'm sure more people wait for the GOG release. Its the uncertainty that is making GOG user buy on Steam.

It's more the game developers and publishers fault than GOG, because they just don't want their games to be DRM free. GOG is a store for them to squeeze every last buck out of, after that the game was on other stores for at least a year or more, and then it got cracked and is on torrents.
Buy external HDD, it shouldn't be that expensive since it's HDD and is enough to store offline installers. Just don't try to play games from that HDD, especially new ones.

It’s GOG’s job to convince developers/publishers to release DRM-free builds of their games. If they can’t convince them, they are failing at their job.

It's hard to convince someone who is 100% against it from the start and maybe decide to release the game DRM-free on GOG when the game has already been cracked so they have nothing to lose.

Well, if it were easy we would do it ourselves, instead of paying GOG to do it ;)
(I actually did that a couple times with indie devs, with some success)

Good job. Now try to convince Ubisoft, EA, Activision, PlayStation or Capcom to do the same with their newest games, and maybe older ones too, but not those that are over 10 years old.

Likewise, I actually have two external HDD with the same backup in case one fails for some reason. I hope GOG updates the offline installer for The Witcher 3, because every language installer except English is still version 1.31, not the latest.

I do have a 1TB external SSD that I got as a gift but I use that for work now and external HDDs are stupidly expensive where I live in fact most tech is. but I cant go into that without going into politics so I will leave it at that and add that I dont make alot of money to begin with as I have to support my ailing mother and none of my other siblings or family want to so its up to me alone but thanks for the suggestion I will see if I can at some point in the future.

Thanks for the suggestion, but no. Because:
1. I don’t care about these games;
2. I see no reason why I should do GOG’s job pro bono.

Kinda regret making this post, I was in an especially-bad mood :p not exactly a morale booster

It did seem strange to see something like this coming from you...

I'm pretty sure we talked ad nauseum of how GOG can get back on its feet for positive solutions. I actually don't know why OP brings up the topic that often, actually.

1. CDP upper management needs to take a risk and invest on GOG. Without this, we're in purgatory.

2. Using this money, they should be sending bizdev people out to all game expos all over the world and get people excited about releasing their games on the platform and even hand them contacts to bypass curation altogether. We have to remember their partners is GOG's literal lifeline. Either all these devs are feigning ignorance about how GOG works or they have zero idea what it's like to release here.

3. Also, they should be auto-depositing cheques rather than having their own moneymaking partners manually invoice them using GOG's sales data.

4. They need to revise the curation system or abandon it altogether. There are quite a few universally panned games on here that clearly don't belong here. So the gates have already been breached so let's just get rid of the curation system and welcome all games that come here as long as they're 100% DRM-free.

5. They need to update the store functionality: search, tags, 18+ game filters, reviews, comments, forums, server uptime/speeds, etc.

6. They need to refocus on offline installers. Galaxy was a mistake. Ever since they've invested in it, revenues have been way up, but net profit margins have been way down with market share being non-significant. Just call it a 10 year old mistake (besides 1.2) and cut further losses.

7. They need to immediately stop development on Galaxy. Every day, there's always someone asking for help on Galaxy. They're a small PC store providing support for customers who might not even be shopping at GOG. Or if they're still going to, poach that guy who makes PlayNite full-time for Galaxy development. That guy actually knows how to make a client with very limited resources.

8. They need to consider decentralizing how everything is done just like Valve/Steam for efficiency. Let devpubs handle their own store pages and prices while GOG staff moderates these pages. GOG actually has a lot of staff for the revenue they take in, which doesn't make sense and doesn't have a tangible effect on their bottom line that I can think of unlike bizdev, marketing, and support.

9. They need to start expanding into other countries with emerging video game markets that Steam currently isn't serving right now. We've discussed before how SEA is a good one.

10. CDPR needs to up their frequency of projects that also publish on GOG to ensure steady cashflow.