These past couple of weeks have been beyond depressing for gamers.
From Sony killing off physical game discs and delisting 500 movies from people with no refunds, to Microsoft culling 3,200 Xbox game devs and repeatedly suspending gamers' accounts for no fault of their own, it's hard to feel optimistic when it feels like the biggest game companies are constantly stabbing their fans in the back while seemingly not giving a single care about preserving digital media.
However, not all hope is lost for legal digital preservation, thanks to GOG.com.
Download the offline installer of any of your games on GOG, save it to a disc and it's yours forever.You don't need a storefront's permission to play what you bought.July 14, 2026
GOG is an unsung hero among digital storefronts, as it sells digital games without Digital Rights Management (DRM). By buying games from GOG.com, you will be able to download a standalone, offline installer for each title, granting you permanent ownership of them.
With this, you can play games offline, back up files, and install them on your hard drive without needing to log in to a store's launcher. Not to mention, you won't have to worry about a game becoming unplayable due to its publisher's dedicated launcher not working (e.g., Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced) or being permanently blocked if it's tied to a compromised Microsoft account.
Not to mention that, in some cases, having DRM restrictions lifted from a game will actually increase its performance so it can achieve higher frame rates for smoother gameplay.
On top of that, GOG states that you can even save the games you buy on their storefront to discs and trade them with your friends, should you wish.
You can download a game's offline installer from a GOG account, create a disc image, and then burn it onto a blank CD-R, DVD-R, or BD-R disc.
Windows Central's take
I was already a fan of GOG as it helped preserve some of my favorite childhood games on PC like Breath of Fire 4 and Dino Crisis 2, but it's now becoming my main go-to storefront for digital PC games in light of recent events.
I'm concerned that the thousands of pounds' worth of games could be taken by corporations who don't care for preserving games or respecting people's digital property. So being able to buy and back them up permanently on my computer or discs via GOG is beyond reassuring and gives me hope that we can still own the games we worked so hard to earn.
So, GOG, you've got yourself a new superfan in me, and I will happily support your "Preservation Program" so we can keep more classic and modern games free of DRM forever because I, for one, do NOT want a gaming future where we own nothing.
What do you think of GOG.com as a digital storefront? Do you think you will be using it more often from now on to permanently preserve your digital game collection, or do you still use other digital storefronts like the Xbox Store?
If you have any thoughts, please let us know through the poll, the comments section, or our Reddit page.
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