That is exactly what I think... and fyron, thanks for saying that! when I said about drop prices, I mean not for transfers but for games... but that is a complete change in strategy, for example I mean rather than £30ish for a new game then transfering costs £10 (not sure, never done it) if they only charged 5-15 for a game, I would not want to swap it... I dont want anything more said on this bit as it is just my personal view and not really on topic
as to number 1 and 3,
1, This is a bad thing to say, but if there was something like that to happen, I am sure that there will be a crack released to allow you to play without... a lot of game studios when they go down now infact offer a no-cd .exe version, or some sort of support, this will most likly happen officially or unofficially but I will bet that it would happen.
3, They would not do this, steam may seem evil, all large companies may seem evil to some, but at the end of the day they all rely on customers, Apart from ISP's, I can not think of a single circumstance where any company suddenly starts to charge for a service that was once free. even on ISP's it is only a change to the price or terms and conditions.
At the end of the day, you pay for the software, it is yours, if they did suddenly start charging, there would be law suits all around! I am almost 100% sure that in the future, there will be games on steam that require a monthly subscription, but they will never suddenly start to charge for a game that was a once off payment.
I want to remake a point ive said all throughout the posts here and my beleifs, I hate the fact that almost every big developer treats everyone on a pc that they are potential pirates, I think pc is superior for strategy, fps, and simulation, but with copy protection methods like star force coming in that interfear with other pc uses, gaming on the pc may soon be over... steam on the otherhand, not sure what it does to check, but it is the first thing I have used that really does not interfear and apart from the initial wait of loading a new game, there is no evidence of it working, and I only get the benefits such as instant patching... again this is a good feature from broadband... As I said, when everyone has broadband and faster machines so steam is invisible, and you ONLY get the benefits from it, that is when people will start liking it.
if you didnt before, read my post here
http://www.gamedev.net/community/for...opic_id=353819 (again, I say I downloaded SE:IV, dont judge unless you read the whole post!)