The DRM-free nature of the games on GOG means that if GOG completely goes out of business tomorrow and the website is taken down, the games that people have purchased and have downloaded a full backup copy of can be installed without any reliance on GOG still being in business. That is a worst case scenario of course.

Deleting one's GOG account basically gives the following results:

1) You can no longer download any of the games or bonus materials that you had in your account prior to the account being deleted, whether they were free games or paid for games.

2) You must have reliable backup copies of any games or their bonus materials on your local hard disk or burned on CD/DVD in order to install any of the games or access the bonus materials as you will no longer be able to re-download any of it once your account is deleted.

3) You will no longer get game patches, updates or additional bonus materials such as FLAC soundtracks, maps, strategy guides, expansion packs or other materials that are added by GOG regularly. For example, Dracula 5 was recently added to the catalogue and was a free gift to everyone who already owned Dracula 4. Over 40-50 games have had FLAC soundtracks added to them in the last 6 months or so. There are game updates happening all the time on GOG and discussed in the "What did just update?" thread on the forums. All of this updated content is only available to download if the customer's account still exists.

4) A small number of the games in the catalogue have an optional license key available for them which is required by the game publisher in order to use the online multiplayer matchmaking built into the game. These keys are either found on the game download page in your GOG account, or can be requested through GOG support. Once the account is deleted these multiplayer keys are essentially permanently unavailable unless one has requested them and copy and pasted them or written them down somewhere safe prior to deleting their account.

There are probably other disadvantages to closing one's GOG account also but those are the most obvious ones I could think of. More importantly though, the list of advantages or good reasons to close down one's GOG account is basically:

- No good reason, and no benefits whatsoever.

So it doesn't really make much sense to even consider doing so IMHO. I believe that most people who might consider deleting their account are likely to be emotionally upset about something, perhaps they're not happy with some decision GOG has made or how a game release was handled or some other event has occurred that has them emotionally fired up somehow and they might feel a bit of emotional thoughts of the nature "Oh yeah, I'll show you! I'll DELETE MY ACCOUNT!!!! That'll show you!" perhaps. Doing so does not really harm GOG or anyone else though and it only results in one harming themselves by permanently giving up access to something they've paid for, and then possibly when they're feeling more calm in an hour/day/week/month/year they might end up regretting giving up their account, changing their mind and losing access to all of the advantages I outlined above with no way to reverse their decision.

So if one is angry towards GOG or experiencing any other negative emotions concerning GOG, games on GOG, the GOG community, a bad experience with GOG support or any other negative energy, the best thing to do is really just to leave everything as it is and take a break. Go do something else. Even if someone swears they'll never buy a game from GOG again because they're angry about something that has happened, why throw away dozens or hundreds of video games and all of their future updates and content and put all of the burden on yourself to have perfect backup copies? Doesn't make much sense.

So, seriously... don't delete your GOG accounts people. It gives no real world benefits to do so and it does leave things open that you might regret having done so at a later date and end up feeling even worse for having made an emotionally driven decision without time to cool off and think about it.

This public service announcement was paid for by a guild of crossbow wielding skeletons.

? ... I never said I have a Steam account, rightly I refuse to use them, I bought on GoG to avoid them. If a game isn't downloaded on our computer and doesn't work alone, what happens if Steam disappears ? Posts new SSA that are refused by the player ? Is removed from the computer ? Or just decide to delete our account (for example if we use private navigation to protect our personal informations, that's forbidden by Steam). All games are lost.
Also they try to kill physical CD/DVD business by forced buyers to use them even they chose a physical DVD.

At least with GoG, we buy a game we own it, independently of a website. That doesn't resolve le problem of physical DVD business' difficulties, indeed :(
Only a miracle can save the physical business... I try to buy physical games in priority, but when a game needs Steam, GoG seems the only honest alternative. Unfortunately, some games needs Steam BUT aren't on GoG (like Tomb Raider).

Future of gaming is really complex...

Thanks for all of your answers :)

Future of gaming is really simple if you are ready to accept the new methods of playing them , the main focus should be playing the game purchased and nothing else. If you look at anything else other than playing the purchased game then it becomes complex.
This what i do on steam these days purchase a game ->play it-> back it up and move on , i really don't bother about the other strings attached there are plenty of games to play no time for all that.

Btw i am typing this stuff while playing a game on steam right now, the present of gaming is not so bad apart from pre order crap and dlcs so much for a game that it exceeds the game base price :X

WTF did half the forum change their avatars overnight!? :P

Shit, I slightly alter mine and I get death threats.

I did? Oh wait...

I wish have a physical product when I pay. The physical product contain a game that the buyer can use for his/her using. He/she haven't the rights on the game but have the rights on the product which contain the game. I don't want to pay for play, I want pay to buy a thing which permit to play, that's the difference (and the difference between a product and a service). On Steam, the client have the rights on nothing. I just want to keep my rights.

If GoG permit to burn the game on a physical DVD it's fair. But more long than just buy a DVD which work alone :(

i hear you out mate , steam backups can be done in such a way that they can be for cd size or dvd size. hopefully galaxy can implement the same kind of thing.

the situation is worse on console side, loosing account is a common thing there
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=853750

The guy on this link is right, digital future is frightening.
You mean if we buy a DVD game, after install it with Steam, we can uninstall Steam and the game will works alone ?

REPEAT AFTER ME:
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IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!
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IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!
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IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!
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IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!
@____@

Good that this approach works for you, but FWIW, there's no universal "should" for all gamers, some of us value other aspects high as well and it's equally valid to want certain conditions other than "play and move on" to be met when we purchase a game, be it online or on CD/ DVD.

On the other hand you can buy a game and start dowloading directly, and in most cases it will probably be faster than going to town, browsing the store in hopes that they offer the games you want, standing in line at the checkout and returning home. And also quicker than waiting for an Amazon package.

Anyway, we have a thread about DRM-free retail games, too. Maybe it can help you find games on DVD that don't require Steam or similar. :)