I don't really bother with archiving just day-to-day software so I don't care too much about keeping packages. I think you could, if anything from the days of offline Linux. It would be a total pain in the ass though.

Most of the games I've gotten going were my GOG games I installed right off my external HDD or disc(s) where I had stored them. Lutris let me point to the exe file of the installer and did the rest. How well it's all worked has far exceeded my expectations, and I'm only a couple weeks in.