I agree with most of this article.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6452-Experienced-Points-Online-Activation-Is-a-Ripoff

• Steam is pretty awesome, but eventually any server will have to shut down.
• I can’t imagine any modern publisher supporting any of the retro games I still wish to play.
• Pirates don’t have to deal with any of this.

Solution-wise: there will always be pirate cracks out there to try and enjoy these games long after their activation servers have gone down.  There may even be distros like GoG.com or Steam’s recent revival of indie and old games.  But the point is: I shouldn’t have to crack or rebuy the game in order to play it.  As the author puts it: All of my old cd based games like Baldur’s Gate that don’t require an online activation will always work.  Throw together a VM or old computer, and you are good to go.  Fans make patches to get games installed and running on modern systems.

What we buy today may not.