I was looking into Halflife 2 Silver at the Steam site, but I'm wondering how the Steam service works. I tried to find the answers on their site, but they seem more interested in touting the features of the service more than explaining the technical aspects.

When you buy a game via Steam, is it installed via the internet/steam service, or does it download an offline installer to your system so that you can back it up and install it at your leisure?

I don't know, call me a worry-wart, but I like the security in knowing that in the unlikely event that Value/Steam goes out of business some 10 or so years down the line, I'll still be able to install and play the game I purchased.

I assume that they give you a serial number to input during installation, but will each fresh install also require you to connect via the internet to unlock the game for play? Again, going back to the event they go out of business some day, I'd still like to play my game even if there server is no longer around to unlock/verify my copy.

I'm sure the likelyhood of them going out of business anytime soon is slim to none, but I like to think ahead. I don't want to be like these people who bought things like Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast and then can't play it anymore because Sega no longer runs the server.

Alyas
"Good... Bad... I'm the guy with the gun."