I'm not quite so confident that the offerings on Steam have a finite lifespan, necessarily. If Steam ever changes, I see it being sold or transferred to another company, and in that case, the terms might change for better or worse, but the game catalog remains. Also, Gaben has made statements in the past to the effect that if Steam ever ended, they would take steps to make the games playable offline, so that might be a possibility as well. I'm not saying it's not possible that Steam might go belly up one day and leave us all in the lurch, but it's not a forgone conclusion either. - - - Updated - - - Another thought, there is also the possibility of Valve doing away with their current DRM scheme and making offline copies playable as part of their business strategy. Apple did it with iTunes. It's possible Valve might eventually make that decision to better compete with their DRM-free competitors like GoG.