Does anyone else do this...
Lately I find myself being paranoid about someday not finding patches or cracks for my favorite games, so I have taken to downloading every game patch, no-CD crack or fixed exe from the internet and backing them up to CDs or DVDs, depending on size, and putting them in the original game box with the real discs.
This is rooted a lot in my paranoia over one day having only closed systems to use in accessing the internet, or in the government regulating internet access to a point anything remotely questionable cannot be downloaded.
Am I being super paranoid here? My friends and girlfriend seem to think so. Lol.
Also, is it just me or is there no way to backup Steam games without the need for Steam installation? It seems like there is no Steam-less mod, like the Live-less mods for Games for Windows Live... the only things available are full-on pirated versions, which I do not want to mess with.
Anyway...
How do you secure your games for the future?

I no longer do bother to back up, I grew tired of messing with discs with much too low data capacity.
First it was 700 MB per disc when I had a dozen or so GB to back up, then 5 GB per disc when I got a couple hundred GB to back up, now my 2 TB of storage is close to full and I'll need to get larger drives still, even Blu-Ray discs seem too small to have everything easily accessible. I'll do back-ups again when I no longer find hard drive based solutions too expensive for the storage capacity I'll need by then. Although knowing me, I probably won't even do back-ups then but instead have some fail-safe solution as primary storage (hot-swappable RAID, Drobo, or something similar).
Sure I'll miss what I may lose access too, but after a while I probably won't even remember what it was and have gone on to something else.
It's not piracy as long as the copy of the game is obtained through legitimate means. Cracking, sure, to remove obstacles to running the game (and editing or replacing the game binaries is in most cases against the terms of use, no matter the reason).

As long as I bought the game and can prove I bought the game, I don't really worry about it.
Sure, according to the DMCA you could view it as illegal, but according to the DMCA modding could be called illegal, so really it is just a stupid law rather than an evil act on my part.
With Steam though, it seems like the only way to have a non-Steam copy is to actually search piracy sites, mount an iso and all that... I just think that is way too far over the bridge for me.
Anyway, I don't mean this thread to be about piracy, just backing up games so you can play them forever, and what a hassle that might be.

Your friends and girlfriend are right.
There was a time where I put patches, no-CD cracks and such away. However, it was before broadband has become your standard i-net connection. Nowadays, I don't see the need for it.
What I DO backup, are some specific savegames. I lost count on how many high-lvl Oblivion chars I lost because that drive died or the file somehow gotten lost on updating to a new PC. Still to have that high-lvl Morrowind char without any quests done - I probably would kill for that. *sigh*
Since most games I own are still from retail, services like Steam or GoG actually ARE my backup for the games. Obsolete floppy discs, scratched CDs, games requiring DOSBox to run and so on... being able to get that game in digital form anytime, anywhere again is just too convenient.
But running a backup for my backup? Naah, I've never reached that level of paranoia. :)

Well, there is nothing more piracy-related to cracking a Steam game than cracking a GfwL game. And that was basically my entire point.

If the game was acquired on disc, yes.
If it was bought for download off Steam there's (in my understanding) no way to back-up and use it without Steam.

http://cs.rin.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=52701

Pretty much the same for me, some things I'd love to find again but because they weren't that mainstream or its real old now I can't find them. I had a ton of unreal tournament mods and starcraft ums maps I've lost as well as some other things.

Darling, please delete that post. We don't like to post piracy on here.

Well I don't consider a backup to be piracy, whether I am using a crack or not. I used to burn iTunes music to a CD, then back into iTunes, solely to remove the DRM on iTunes music. Was that piracy? I don't think so, I bought the songs.
I have never pirated in my life and if you saw my amazon purchase history for PC games you would call me insane, but I do use cracks to make backups of games I purchased.

Oy vey.
Good for you, you have the moral high ground, blah blah blah.
Either way, using a crack is using a crack. If that is moral or not is up to you. But there is no difference between cracking a Steam game and cracking another game.
So if you are okay with cracking the games you legally own, crack the games you legally own. Shouldn't matter how you have to install them.

Gundato, please look again. We don't like to make false claims around here. ;)

This happened to me, there were 10 patches to NRA varmint hunter game up to 1.10 and the only one you can find nowadays anywhere is the first patch, 1.01. I remember the last patch made I tried was 1.07 and it made the game beyond playable and into the fun zone finally, but even the fansites left are gone and there's 2 places to get the only patch available and 1.01 is no fun at all and very broken. Since then I stuck to GOG, Steam, and Impulse. Auto-patches FTW.

First, it is against the Steam TOS/TOU either way. So that right there is pretty bad.
Either way, with no internet requirement, it is a crack. And it is one that can EASILY be used to pirate the Steam games.
So just do everyone a favor and share it everywhere but here :p