Agreed, but in all likelihood we'll never get a straight answer to #4 ("Will the makers of steam never change their terms of use so that this game authentication requirements don't change whether now or in the future?"). It's related to these questions:
- What happens if the company goes out of business, or is absorbed by a larger company that's no longer interested in paying to keep the authorization servers online?
- If I keep an old computer around to run games I consider classics and might want to re-visit, and it's running a OS version several versions old.... will you guarantee that your current version of DRM, Steam, whatever will still authenticate the game on that older platform? What are you promising, in essence, for future support?
I've never seen a game rep give a straight answer to these sorts of questions, whenever it comes up in other forums. "Don't worry, we'll take care of you" is not a straight answer, but it's the closest I've seen to any kind of commitment for future support, no matter what happens to the company.
This goes to the heart of whether we're renting or purchasing games. It's much more relevant for a strategy title like TW, which gamers might want to re-visit in the future, than something with limited replay value like a FPS game. If I'm only going to be renting my games with no guarantee of future installation whenever I want, then I want a different price structure.
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