With the worlds corporations buying each other out faster than we can count, my question is what happens if someone purchases Steam, then shuts it down? You don’t have a hard copy of anything you can run. Every penny you have sunk into Steam would be gone. Tell me what you think.
some steam cd keys work in origin. that being said I'm not at all worried and if by some sequence of events this occurred I would be dissapointed and that's it.
Nobody will purchase Steam; it is a part of Valve, one of the most publically supported game companies out there. If there is ever any news about this, all of the Half Life fans (including me) will revolt, demanding Valve for the years to come.
Steam makes too much money for this to happen. Steam is just the middleman that sells you content - You don't need Steam to play games you bought. (With the exception of a few, mainly Valve games.)
their api is already pretty much cracked, you'd just have to add a dll to the directory for bypassing online attestation when running the software you bought. as far as hardcopies, you'd have digital copies.. that is what a nas is for. keep backups of your license/key files and serials too.
Valve is a private company... Steam is service they own and not it's own company or subsidiary. Valve will not be bought unless Gabe wanted to sell it which he wouldn't or if they first went public and shareholders wanted to sell it which will likely never happen as being a public company goes directly against their whole company structure and philosophy.
Steam will NEVER be bought out. EA wanted to buy Valve and Gaben (Gabe Newell = Founder of Valve which owns Steam) basically said get the fuck out.
And If Steam ever was going to "shut down" -- like other distribution services -- they would probably give you a week or two to download all the games you have bought or have an option to retain your license for the game.
You're in the best hands possible with Valve. So I'm not worried.
Agreed. Valve will look after you.
On GoG - I doubt they will carry many more new titles, the whole purpose of GoG is to provide the old ones!
Gabe actually mentioned in an "interview" a while ago about never selling Steam, and that he's not in it for the money.