It appears that the reason the game was broken is because of DRM. It was trying to authenticate its copy protection and couldn't do so. It's likely that if it wasn't for the DRM, the game would have never been broken in the first place.
So though this thread was primarily about leaving a game broken for two months, it's also indirectly about DRM and the problems it can cause.

As amusing as this thread was to read....
I just thought I'd point out that this practice is illegal in the UK.
I beleive its one of the inherant 'Statutory Rights' that a prodcut has to be fit for the purpose it was designed for.
Essentially selling a product that doesn't work as advertised is illegal, and you can sue.
It isn't the publishers or developers responsibility if a game doesn't work 'because' of Steam, it is Valve's as the reseller, and because they actually altered the product so it is dependant on their client, thus making them liable for its correct operation.
Now I've never used Steam and have no intention of ever doing as its far too restrictive, nor will I ever buy another game from EA with its draconian DRM.
If these companies don't realise that they can attract more flies with honey than vinegar, then they don't deserve my business.
A game should sell itself on its merits and price point, get this right and you don't need DRM (its always going to get pirated to some degree), people will be happy to pay for a good quality game.

barleyguy,
At the core of the problem was indeed a DRM other than Steam's so you are right when you say DRM is indirectly linked to this thread. Go back some pages and you'll see i pointed that out, and i even made the point that for that alone this thread has merit.
If i gave the impression i was trying to kill the DRM debate, i wasn't.
I was just making sure LordGrievous hadn't missed out on the rest of the issues (not DRM related), the ones that link to this thread in a direct way, and the main reason for this particular set of complaints against Steam, that's all.
elminster,
I'm willing to bet that this practice is illegal in many places.
And about the possibility to sue, the motivation is quite low, when they pretty much can re-write the EULA whenever they want, and hold absolute unilateral power over a subscription that neatly ties all of the customer's games in a 'bunch', if you get my meaning.
I Iwas aware of the restrictions when i signed on. I don't like them, but i decided i could live with them.
But this kind of behaviour raises a whole new set of issues and i didn't signed on for that.
And i'm with you on EA. Pure evil....and sneaky :)

Btw you could argue that GOG is selling a broken game itself when you consider that Seven Kingdoms 2 has no music while playing the game, this is what users are reporting in the Seven Kingdoms 2 forum. I hope GOG will fix this and fast, i don't want them turning into Steam.

At least they could inform of this kind of “features” on the game page, the number of games with issues is starting to ask for a “Broken games on GOG” thread.

Well there's still no public patch to Arx Fatalis either, so based on how you said it, everybody who paid full price for it all those years ago have a broken game that won't be fixed unless we buy it from GOG.com for even more cash. Miraculous how these things 'accidentalty' happen with these download sites, isn't it!?

And it's still Arkane Studios fault/problem, not GOG's, no matter how many times you complain about it here. Maybe if you had made all the complaints to Arkane, there might have been a patch for the retail version already, hmm? You could also get in contact with other retail version owners of Arx and rally them to flood Arkane with complaints about the situation, maybe then they'd notice.

Why don't you start such a topic? It could be usefull after all. You could also make a feature request...

Petrell. I have posted more on Arkane threads than I have here about this issue,. but as of today Arkane announced there is no resources to do a public patch 'that was made for GOG Users', That final quote tells me either GOG mad the fix or paid Arkane to make the fix.
In any event, for GOG to call it the official 1.19 patch when it is not available to the public and therefore cannot be 'official' or numbered '1.19' (continuing from the last official 1.18 patch) is morally disputable.

Once again, you are leaping to conclusions that have absolutely no basis in fact. And once again, you need to be making your complaints on Arkane's forums, not here. If you should have figured out one thing by now, going on about this issue here will get you nothing, since none of this was GOG's doing.
EDIT - Just to put my money where my mouth is, I created an account on the Arkane forums, just to add my two cents to the whole issue:
http://forum.arkane-studios.com/viewtopic.php?t=251
The sad part is, most of us would probably agree with you John, if your anger was directed correctly. It is wrong for Arkane to produce a patch for everyone except their loyal customers, but it is solely their responsibility to deal with it, not GOG's or anyone else's.

In any event, for GOG to call it the official 1.19 patch when it is not available to the public and therefore cannot be 'official' or numbered '1.19' (continuing from the last official 1.18 patch) is morally disputable.
Please do yourself and the rest of us a favour and buy the game on GOG already if it winds you up so much. Seriously, I fail to see why this is such an issue to you. I too have a retail version of Arx Fatalis and I've played it recently without too many issues which I couldn't fix myself (namely the Nvidia white texture glitch), but do you see me, or any else for that matter, raising such a fuss over this?
Of course not, and if it really meant that much to me or most likely anyone else, we'd just pay the pittance that GOG is asking for the game and be done with it. For all the time you've spent complaining, surely you could have put that time to better use earning the $5.99 that GOG ask for the game. Come on, it's not *THAT* much money...

If nothing else, the fact that he's the only person here with negative rep, should tell him that he's pretty much alone with his opinion.