The thing is, if Steam went out of business just who would you go after to remove the authentication? And even if you do find someone to go after such a case can take years to make it through the courts, and with the numerous companies that would be lining up against you (the likes of EA would hardly just stand back and let it happen) the outcome is a toss-up at best. The only case where one could feel secure that Steam games would always be accessible is if there were a patch being held in escrow to remove the activation requirement with the condition that it be released upon the activation servers shutting down. Unless such a thing is in place any games that require online activation should be considered nothing more than rentals; it sucks, but that's pretty much the reality of it.

Great. Here's hoping they never do go out of business (seems unlikely they will, since so many people buy from them), because if they do, I have over $1,000 of games on there that will simply disappear.

Committing wanton acts of thread necromancy like a boss!

Anyway, "Jade Empire" is on GOG, "Mirror's Edge" was released on PC two years after the PC version of JE. Both were published by EA. By that stretch logic, do you think there is any chance of Mirror's Edge popping up on GOG in the next year or so?

I would love to have the game here DRM FREE, since they are rebooting it now maybe the old one could have a slim chance of showing up on GOG to generate some more buzz for it. :)

"Rebooting" frequently means they want everyone to think what came earlier never existed.

I guess that is also correct but the first one didn't sell really well and has a really dedicated fan base, they would probably try t do whatever they can to make sure people are aware of the new game.

Hmmm, I wonder why... couldn't have had anything to do with ultra-draconian DRM measures that haven't been lifted to this day (limited installs come to mind).