As long as they don't shut down Daggerfall Unity I don't really care.

Damn! I really wanted Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal released on GOG! Now I don't think it will happen at all, unless there was a contract made already or somehow Microsoft releases on GOG to compete with Steam, which I don't think will happen at all.

BTW, most Microsoft developer studios usually don't end well. Ensemble, Rare, Lionhead, Bungie... were good studios that either got disbanded or forced to make yet another sequel of a burned franchise. I was a Xbox360 fan back in the day, until most E3 were a new Gears of War, a new Forza, a new Fable, a new Halo... I'm sorry but I'm not a fan of what Microsoft is doing at all.

They turned consoles into PCs with the worst part of PC/console worlds, and they really wanted to push the "always online" to play when the Xbox One came out, even for single player games. At start they didn't make any kind of retrocompatibility, even for small indie games, and that was something deliberated. The only reason all those things didn't happen is that they were really critized and they didnt' start that good. We are lucky the W10 store failed too, as Games For Windows did in the 200x. Once they get enough market share, I'm sure they will be back to bad practices.

If you like any Bethesda game that you don't own, I would start getting them. I hope GOG announces the pull in advance, but I lost some games previously because it was just announced on the forums and I didn't check in time.

M$ have not generally been mod friendly, that’s changed a little bit over the years but not much. We will see with DU. More importantly what will they do with creation club. When they make all beths games for windows dead, that will likely be the end of modding.

They buy properties because they are profitable, shutting the studio down or throttling the content is not profitable.

I was skeptical when they purchased Mojang, but aside from a few "exclusive" extras tied to MS products, they never put their noses in development or tied the hands of the devs. Remember there was a time when all Bethesda products were removed from GOG without mega-corporate oversight? People wanted them back and they came back, because there was profit to be made.

Alan Wake was pulled from every shelf when the music licensing ran out, but a new deal was made (I assume) and the games went back up for sale again.

Just have to wait and see, it may even have no perceivable effect in the long run. I would hope the understanding is that purchasing a major studio that is already successful makes it logical to allow them to keep doing what they do.

***WARNING - Tinfoil Hat Moment ***

Just a thought: Last year GOG officially announced some sort of partnership between them and Microsoft, concerning Galaxy integration and Xbox Live.
This year Bethesda - all of a sudden - decide to drop some of their biggest titles here - Wolfensteins, Prey, Dishonored, Evil Within, etc...

Was Zenimax desperately in need of money and decided to grab some quick bucks with GOG?
Were the conversations between Microsoft and Zenimax already taking place last year and Microsoft decided to give a small candy to GOG for their Xbox support?

Just speculating here... I have no sympathy towards Microsoft and in all honesty I think that everything that Microsoft touches, inevitably turns to shit (I still remeber when Nokia was the "titan" of mobile phones).

Maybe that's why they sold to the Microsoft overlords. I wonder if the F76 fiasco and losses were even worse than most people imagine.

That's probably just one part of it.

Bethesda bought-out a few studios too over the years - such as BattleCry Studios (i.e. that got renamed to Bethesda Austin). They have another studio in Texas and also one in Montreal. That's 3 Studios right there, under the Bethesda name.

Buying studios like that...cannot be cheap.

Heck...and I'm not even including Zenimax buying Id Software, Arkane, Tango GameWorks, and MachineGames here; and not including Zenimax creating Zenimax Online Studios for ESO.

Thus, if a game fails hard like FO76 did and they have all these studios here...yeah, smells like a recipe for disaster. Probably another reason why they sold to Microsoft.

We also knew they were ramping-up their studios for both Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6. And I'm guessing making those two games won't be cheap either; and they probably need the $. I expect both of those to be AAA or even AAAA titles.

EDIT:
Also, anyone know how well or poorly games like Evil Within series, Prey 2017, Dishonored series, Doom series, Quake Champions, and MachineGames' Wolfenstein Reboot series sold? Did they even break even on those? Make a profit on them?

How well was Zenimax doing here with Elder Scrolls Online here, sales-wise?

Maintaining MMO's and online-only AAA games like ESO and FO76 can't be cheap.

I really doubt they would remove stuff already sold here. MS has very little interest in stores outside their own and the gigantic Steam it seems, but I think that's more about time and bothering with it rather than any kind of "GOG NO!" sentiment. I mean DRM is a factor for new stuff obviously, but I think that's it.

Also even if they did remove it, you'd still have access, so it doesn't effect you.

Yes, the main motive of concern is not already existing games, but where and how will future games distributed. For example, among the possible futures, there is a dark one where AAA titles are streamed, and GOG lives on indies. GOG not getting older AAA titles because they were never intended to be installed, etc.

Also, with 5G, streaming on mobile platforms might become more and more usual.

I very much worry about subscription exclusives, with heavy DRM to enforce the limitation, but streaming exclusives are probably a ways away. I mean, I know Stadia bought a few indie games to have exclusive, but Stadia seems to be a wet fart and I doubt their competitors Microsoft and Sony will do that anytime soon. I guess you never know though.

But yeah, subscription exclusives will soon be a thing.

John Carmack is officially a happy chappy with this news anyway.

I just remembered a long ago thread where someone was asking when Skyrim would finally come to GOG. I was in a trollish sort of mood and said something like it will come to Xbox Game Pass before it comes to GOG. So if you troll and it ends up being a true prediction of the future, is it still classified as trolling?

I'm yet to buy Evil Within I'm waiting for a sale
You didn't troll them, Microsoft trolled you.
That does have the noggin joggin.

I call this fakenews. 7.5b for entire Bethesda/Zenimax. Come on. Even if there was something going on, usually they sell little by little.

Best Strogg slogan ever :)