I don't want a long debate here but was this reddit thread known about?

Seems to say that as recently as 2013 Steam support staff were promising Steam games would still work if Steam ever shuts down. I always thought that was a total myth.

Yes, it's been known. The main issue will be with "how do you download them?" since the publishers will have to provide the servers. By then if things were that bad then Google or Facebook would own Steam though. :P

People want to know what happens when Steam closes. (9 words!)
Basically someone wants to add the procedure of what'll happen to their Steam purchases if Valve/Steam goes under.
They do have a plan. Although I've known this for a long time so it's nothing new for me.

One could back up the games they REALLY care about though and feel relatively secure, I guess?

Unless it's been shown that patches to strip out the DRM are completed and being held in escrow by a third-party, along with legal agreements in place to ensure that these patches are released regardless of the wishes of new owners, publishers, creditors, or court-appointed executors, then such statements don't count for much.

Acquisitions, mergers, and especially bankruptcies can be quite messy when it comes to prior customer agreements and services, and it's very difficult to make any sort of promise that can reliably withstand one of the aforementioned events. The folks at Steam may have every intention of making their best effort to ensure people still have access to their games if Steam goes under or changes ownership, but even their best effort would likely amount to very little in such an event.

Steam is a Digital Distribution service. The main convenience is to not have to buy mass storage + using your bandwidth (which for some of us is limited) to put your games on. I couldn't afford to make physical backups of my collection even if I wanted to. It'd probably take some years. So I'd have to stick with the publishers letting me make an account on their site to download the product anytime I need it.

I think that it's unlikely Steam will go down someday. Maybe it might, can't say. Ultimately it's with the pubs/devs on whether they'll let those licenses stay valid, and responses will vary across the board, I am guessing.

But! Contribute to this cause,

http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst and such.

Hmmm. I kind of consider making backups an inherent part of digital distribution.

It'd be cool if there was a cloud to cloud service that didn't cost money for unlimited hosting. Alas. ^^

Yes it's been known about but it's also incredibly vague. Some random tech support staff wrote:

"In the unlikely event of the discontinuation of the Steam network, measures are in placeto ensure that all users will continue to have access to their Steam games."

"Meassures are in place"? What measures? What does that actually mean? Nobody knows. It's not a guarantee because they can't guarantee. It's not even up to them. It's up to the publishers (or more accurately the rights holders). Think about how they'd react if Steam, for whatever reason, unilaterally removed the DRM from their games? Think about how hard it sometimes is for GOG to persuade publishers to do this.

And all this ignores the more likely scenario: Steam gets bought. Gabe retires/dies. Evil Overlord takes over. This is much more likely than Steam going out of business and could potentially be worse.

what gets me about this is...

what about the "Steamed" games bought after the fall, as in years after Steam is gone, especially those that basically just have A download link on the disc

Err... I see a screenshot of a private message with the support tech's name rubbed out. That doesn't lend me much comfort. Is there better evidence available? :/

Eww to backing up media. So done with that. That's a big reason why I went digital to begin with :)

I trust Valve to ensure we will get to play our games if for whatever reason Steam went down. That is highly unlikely though i'd say some other big company will carry it on if something were to happen to Valve.