I haven't had time to get into Anno 1404 AKA Dawn of Discovery, but you might be interested to know that the game is no longer available on Steam and hasn't been for some time. Whether that's an indication that GamersGate too could run out of copies, or whether it's removal from Steam was for another reason is anyone's guess.

However, if you're thinking of getting it, now might be the time to do so just in case. RUSE, as someone else said, is a Steamworks game, so its availability probably isn't an issue in the long run.

Ok, Anno 1404 it is

RUSE just got 75% off on Gamersgate, about 4 hours ago.

yeah I saw, but Anno 1404 is tomorrow so it was a toss up

There is nothing wrong with the availability of Anno 1404 it was pulled just from Steam, and only because of Ubisofts incompetence of not putting an up to date version on Steam(pre patch version was a mess i hear). Also worth of note the game has Tagés(yes _that_ Starforce substitute Tagés) DRM, with 3 activation limits(and the chance to beg for more :/ ).

That's one theory being put out, but considering that Steam sell plenty of games in an unpatched state and have not removed any of those from sale, it's highly unlikely that's the actual reason it was removed.

Unless you can find a post/support response from Valve confirming without a doubt it was removed due to not being patched, take that theory as just an unlikely possibility (for the record, they sold continued to sell Jagged Alliance 2 Unfinished Business for almost 2 years despite it being complete unplayable due to a bug that prevented the game from saving, etc.).

The latest patch removes all drm from Anno 1404 and Venice.

GameStop / Impulse :

Lead & Gold $2.13 ( Steamworks )
Battlefield Bad Company 2 $9.99 ( NA only )
Battlefield 2: Complete Collection $14.99 ( NA only )
Heroes of Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East Expansion Pack $9.99 ( NA only )
Dungeons $19.99
Ship Simulator Extremes $9.99
Prince of Persia The Two Thrones $4.99 ( NA only )
Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate $17.99 ( NA only )
Tropico 3 Gold Edition $9.99
Spore $9.97 ( NA only )
Spore Creepy and Cute Parts Pack $19.99 ( NA only )
Spore Galactic Adventures $14.99 ( NA only )
Northland $2.49
Beyond Good and Evil $4.99 ( NA only )
Hearts of Iron III Mega Pack $12.99
Supreme Commander $3.74
Company of Heroes: Gold Edition $7.49
Full Spectrum Warrior Complete Pack $7.99
Drakensang $3.39
Storm Over the Pacific $29.99
Black Mirror II: Reigning Evil $9.99
Black Mirror III: Final Fear $9.99
Crazy Machines 1.5 $4.99
Children of the Nile Complete $12.49
Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga $19.99
Revolution Under Siege $14.99
World in Conflict Gold Edition $9.95 ( NA only )
RIFT $24.99
RIFT Digital Collector's Edition $34.99

Is Rift ever not on sale? It's discounted so often you'd think 1C published it.

R.U.S.E.
Can you play as Germany or is it the same old boring USA , UK , Soviet Union ?
Is it worth for the single player only ?

Indeed i see it on sale all the time aswell, Is it because they are losing subscriptions and people are going back to World of Warcraft or something?

It will be FTP by the end of this year .

That's kind of sad for them then, Rift is actually a pretty good MMO and it was the closest thing to a WoW competitor for years. Going free to play usually alienates the customers though since most of these games become Pay To Win.

Well on the positive side at least i can go back to it, i just couldn't justify paying £9 a month for it when Guild Wars 2 is coming out and won't have any monthly fees, same reason i quit WoW.

How about Aion ?

This is pure speculation, but I get the impression that it's not so much that they're bleeding subscriptions as that the game didn't meet launch expectations in the first place. They've been sending me discount offers and guest codes in the mail since the game came out. Positioning itself explicitly as a WoW-killer (remember "We're not in Azeroth anymore"?) may also have backfired.

Rift already raised some eyebrows in the press (as did DCUO) for going with a traditional subscription-only model. I think it's likely that the game will implement f2p in some capacity by the end of next year, similar to what games like LotRO, EQ2 and DDO have already done.