This is what I hope you mean:

If Valve bricked my account for an unfair reason, you would (assuming your game is mandatory Steamworks, and assuming I was not at fault) provide me a new serial so I could play on a new Steam account.

Hopefully, and 99% likely, it would never come to that- but it's my nature to worry about the 1%, and Valve has not earned my trust over the years (nor my distrust- I do use Steam, though I think it's a meh service)

Now, if I hacked or pirated, or something along those lines - that would be a different story.

As for Sins:Rebellion, curious question, can you play that game without activating Steam at all through the .exe like you can with some other Steam games? 

I don't really mind steam (do not use it yet) and see the advantages of it. What disturbs me is the idea of a monopolistic mean of distribution. There are other digital distributors (like Impulse as you mention it) and yet, when they sell a steam protected game, you need to go trough steam. This could become a major problem one day (see also the comments done by the boss of Valve about his fears with Windows 8).

My concerns with Steam:

1) It's market power and ability to change the TOS whenever it wishes:  That's near-absolute power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  I wouldn't trust Brad with this power either.   Some great games (Din's Curse), and some interesting niche games, have been shafted by Valve in the past.   A free market instead of a failed market (and DD is a failed market) would force consumers into having multiple services, and increase the exposure of smaller games.   That increased exposure would mean more/better games of the types I like.

2) The possibility of a PSN-style monthlong outage hack.  This may be super-remote, but I'm sure someone could pull if off. With other servies, I'd be able to play my games.  Steam's offline mode just doesn't work well enough.

3) For SP it's an inferior service.  (For MP it's a great service).  This last one is just opinion.  Given how most Stardock games are primarily SP focused, going Steam-only would make the games more annoying to start.  (This isn't the case with Sins, and I can understand why Sins went Steam-only since it's primarily MP)

I'm ok with not being able to resell games since there are plenty of sales- and I factor that into what I'm willing to pay.  some DD games do offer refunds (Soldak offers a 30 day refund- but their games are awesome)

Another scenario I'd be fine with: given what Brad said earlier: if he really would reimburse folks who got legitimately screwed by Valve, having Steam be used for updates/installs, but having the game run DRM-free, just like what Stardock games do now- I'd accept that.  Some Steam games do this (Dredmor/Mount and Blade), so it's not hard to do.   If I felt it was fine with Impulse, it should be fine with Steam.   If someone owns Sins and is reading this: does Sins work like this?   I believe I've asked before, but never received an answer- can you get Sins running without having Steam running?

A logical decision given that MS will try to corner Windows8 with their own marketplace which, from what I hear, is already deeply ingrained in the UI.

Offline mode doesn't work for everyone. and it's occasionally buggy for me the rare times I've needed it (and always slow).

harpo

I want to believe that Brad, and it really means a lot to hear that from stardock's ceo in person. One of the reasons I trust stardock more then steam.

But a lot of companies made that claim and didn't follow it through. And aren't there legal obstacles? Your company's creditors (the hypothetical ones if the company hits hard times, I imagine you don't have creditors when flush with cash) have rights and that includes a right to have you auction off all of the company's assets to recover the money they are owed. Unless I am mistaken, wouldn't putting it into public domain when going under be considered a theft of their property?

And you did sell impulse to Gamestop! understandable due to the financial hardship at the time; you did what you had to do. But I wouldn't trust gamestop as far as I could throw them and I had bought a lot of games from impulse based on that trust in your word specifically brad. That and the fact that unlike steam impulse allowed you to backup your games to zips and reinstall from those WITHOUT an online DRM verification, an assurance against the servers ever going down. I don't believe gamestop can be trusted to respect your policy and word.

And do you intend to do this forever? what about when you pass on (everyone dies eventually; hopefully not anytime soon though)? Whomever ends up with ownership of the company then can sell it to whomever they want, even EA.

IRL example that happened: EA bans users from forums over DRM argument. Customer loses all their games.

IRL example that happened: Impulse was sold off to GameStop.

Why does everyone assume I buy CDs when I blast steam's DRM? I get low/no DRM from some of steam competitors, when there is no choice I either don't buy the game at all (onerous DRM) or buy it with the DRM in downloadable format... sometimes even from steam itself (I have a decent sized library). This is because the DRM on CDs is far far worse then that on DRMed games. Buying a CD means buying both a product AND a license with the drawbacks of both and the benefits of neither, combined with worse DRM then steam.

And to answer your question, statistically speaking, steam shutting down is more likely per person. If (hypothetical number) 0.01% of steam customers will lose their house in a fire or a flood per 10 years. If steam shuts down 100% of their customer's lose their data. That means that for those two to merely equal each other, steam shutting down has to be 1/10,000 th the likelihood of a fire.

Also,

Microsoft shuts down DRM servers http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9926476-7.html

Yehoo shuts down DRM servers https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080724/0341381775.shtml

Walmart shuts down DRM servers https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080929/0004132388.shtml

heck, even bioware (post EA acquisition) shut down their older games' servers.

Of course in reality there is always the ILLEGAL option of pirating a product you purchase that was was lost (be it fire or DRM Server termination) due to being impossible to backup due to DRM. As hilariously explained in http://xkcd.com/488/

Note the line at the bottom, they are not advocating piracy they are advocating that customer demand DRM free products.

That's why I trust babies.  I can throw them pretty far.

Perfect example indeed. Can you name a baby who stabbed someone in the back?

Well, I guess a baby CAN pee on your nice new suit.

Steamworks means that the game REQUIRES steam to be running in order to install/run the game.

To claim they are separate things is absurd. You might be able to buy it at walmart but you are merely having walmart act as a distributer for steam. In the end the game comes from steam.

Software developers and distributors should put their money where their mouth is and put in an equal effort combating anti competition as they do combating piracy! But cannot expect the free market to not be self interested hypocrites so i would settle for just government authorities world wide putting in as much effort combating anti competition activity as they do piracy!!!

Ironically, combating anti competition also means your indirectly combating one of the big motives for piracy!

I'm not a big fan of Steam because I have to launch games from their service, rather than directly.  They also tend to have the highest prices for AAA titles, and are very slow at cutting those prices.

I buy most of my games these days via Amazon.com's digital distribution system.  They often have great deals, I can install games to any drive I want, they require no 3rd party software or launcher, and the downloads are fast and easy.  My second purchase option is usually direct from the developer if they have a digital distribution system.

Steam is the last place I ever look for a game.  If I was a huge fan of indie games, Steam would be great for me, but I'm not a big indie gamer.