I don't understand how this ruling would have any impact in convincing more publishers to make their games DRM-free.

This has no impact om DRM or DRM free.

A step forward for game preservation, though.

DRM = Defective By Design

How true...

THIS!

Somewhat reminds me the promise Valve gave people, that if Steam went down they would give owners of the games "cracks" that enabled to play the games if Steam would fail.

And how exactly is it different from GOG, or any other DRM free digital service?

I didn't make this point or take it into consideration before. Okay. I'll expand on my previous argument because know I realized I lacked an essential point. To address your point, no, that isn't really different from a shallow perspective. But its different when we look deep.

Even your downloaded Steam games in a post-Steam future are in danger.

Because Steam games don't often have proper installers or anything, you'll have to be even more careful of your Steam titles from then on if you don't want them broken and effectively locked out of it. With DRM-free websites, Desura could fall anyday, but their installers that I kept will remain working for years to come, if one of my Desura games break, I could simply reinstall from the installer. Not so easily a case with Steam after its loss considering how closed the system is.

And what if Windows 14 breaks installers? in that case, the Steam "as is" files are more future proof than gOg's installers (for the DRM free games Steam have). For conservation purposes and future proofing - installers are actually not ideal. It is adding an extra layer which have the potential of breaking (unlikely as it may be)

Do not confuse the DRM matter with installers or not, please.

So, the game for which you downloaded the installer will be usable in the future. I didn't contest that.

But the point you were trying to make in the post I quoted was that there was a difference regarding Steam for the games you didn't download. And I replied that no, there is none. If GOG is gone, then my non-downloaded GOG games are gone too. Nothing "shallow" about it, thank you very much. :/

Not really, if something in windows 10.8 (MS said windows 10 will be the last windows) kills the installer package there are tools to extract the files from the installer. Which puts you in the exact same position of just having files. It still requires the publisher/developer to update those files to make them OS compatible.

If by chance Windows 14 breaks installers, isn't it feasible that some Steam files 'as is' have a big chance to also break? Just think of it. Installers are more ideal than the mess we have going for today, sure it may not be as really ideal as a zipped file, but its more ideal than relying on servers that could die to install our games.

Confuse? Sorry, but DRM affects installers. Actually stop confusing yourself first.
I didn't point a difference between Steam and others in the initial post. But then I elaborated that while Steam is gone that most games probably aren't going to go well with repairs, DRM-free installers and zips are just going to be usable for far longer than their respective services.

Yay! Finally, in 2050, I will be able to play Diablo III without the fucking useless always-on connection!

I was playing it on the PS3 the other day, as far as I can tell, and didn't get far in just to the first boss quest, its pretty average. Didn't see any level up choices, linear, no real interesting story. It may get better of course, but I canned it a that point as I have too much of a backlog.

I don't worry about Valve's downfall, I have more important things to do like play games that I like.

But the games that you bought from Steam are tied to Valve's lifetime. If Valve dies, so do your games.