joe302992: I already own both LE and SE but would happily buy it again on GOG if I could have a DRM version. I know the SE won't appear as its CC is tied into the main menu, but there's no reason why the LE can't come. Anyone interested in a GOG Skyrim? If enough people demand it maybe Bethesda might listen. Any GOG devs wish to comment?
Any chance? Yes of course! There is always a chance that any game ever made could end up being sold on GOG in the future. There are a lot of games that are extremely super duper mega unlikely either due to being tied up in legal intellectual property hell (like the Black & White series), but even some of those eventually get sorted out (like Legacy of Kain Black Omen finally got sorted out and released here).
There are also a lot of game companies that have very little incentive to release their games in any other stores other than their own such as Blizzard or Valve for example... however... GOG managed to convince Blizzard to let them bring back Diablo and Warcraft 1&2 a while back which was a shocking "wow, hell actually froze over" moment.
So a lot of us definitely think certain games are likely to never ever be released here due to either legal issues or the companies that own the games have no incentive to distribute their games on GOG, and while that is true there are occasional times where it does end up happening, and it's been happening with increasing frequency every year as the store has grown over time. So we can say "unlikely" but also "never say never".
Having said all of that, GOG themselves do not get to pick and choose what games they sell here if the publisher of a game does not want to sell their game here. The only way a game gets sold here is if the publisher of the game themselves desires to sell the game here and approaches GOG and negotiates a mutual agreement, or if GOG approaches them and convinces them in negotiation to do it.
We know that GOG is constantly approaching publishers and trying to bring their games here, in particular the most highly wishlisted ones, and that they've had many successes doing this over the years. At the end of the day GOG can't force companies to sell their games here though, a company has to either want to do it or to be convinced via negotiation, and if they just straight up do not want to do it or don't want to put the resources into the investment then it wont happen.
In the case of Skyrim it isn't a matter of Bethesda not knowing, nor a case of GOG not asking them. It ultimately comes down to business, and the only reason a game like Skyrim isn't available on GOG is that Bethesda has chosen that it isn't a priority for them to do so currently compared to other things they could be doing. If Skyrim DRM-free on GOG becomes a higher priority over time then we're very likely to see it show up here eventually.
If you look at Bethesda's releases here over time, we now have many of their games here that people swore would never ever come to GOG. Then when they do, people say "that's fine and dandy but THIS GAME <insert other game not yet here> will never come to GOG!" and another 6 months or year or two passes and that game comes to GOG also and surprises everyone. The cycle continues with people saying "yeah that's great, but THIS OTHER GAME isn't here and wont come here ever".... until it too does.
So IMHO, nothing is "never" going to happen. Everything will come here when the decision makers at a given publisher decide that they want to do it because they see it as a strong investment opportunity and depending on the game, they go about resolving any legal or other ownership etc. issues first, and then get working on it.
That's really the only reasons why any game isn't here, either legal reasons, lack of resources, or the publisher either not seeing the projected ROI being viable for the effort they need to put into it, or seeing other potential projects as a higher ROI for the same resource expenditure. It's all big business in the end, and money walks as they say.
We'll see Skyrim here eventually most likely but not until Bethesda thinks it is the most worthwhile thing for them to be spending their resources to churn out. Same thing is true for any game from any publisher though really, it's nothing Bethesda specific.