Because it was a lot cheaper than the Unreal engine (which Deus Ex, a similar game, used) and because Valve probably made promises they didn't keep regarding when it would be finished? Well, I say 'probably' but when you push the release of your game a year and half back ... of course games that licensed the engine will suffer.

Well if you're given an opportunity at the next big thing in technology with a deadline, you'd think they could be relied upon to deliver but sadly there's this valve time thing... at least they managed to finish it which proves valve time is faster than 3drealms time
From that single one sided quote, it certainly sounds like there'd be grounds for troika being more than a little pissed with valve
All the more reason bloodlines should be HERE (witth soundtrack, not using itunes or paying $9 without the game being included) rather than there.

It was always ironic to see the game arrive on Steam but that was after the downfall of Troika, after all, when Activision just wanted to recoup its losses. Very sad considering the first two thirds of the game is sheer brilliance. I had a hell of a lot more fun playing it than Half Life 2, which to me felt like a shooter on rails.
And yeah, my love for Valve sure took a huge dive back then. First they shut down WON and forced everyone on Steam which killed off my clan (half of them couldn't even get Steam working and several had their cd keys swallowed by Steam and Steam support was just as useless back then and demanded a 5-6 year old receipt as proof *facepalm*), then they lied about HL2 (long story which I won't go into here), and then this happened.
Bloodlines was a game I looked forward to a hell of a lot more than Half Life 2. It was Deus Ex with vampires - what more could you want?

It'll finally get the release it deserves here. :)
Just too bad any ex-Troika people won't get any money from it.

The really ironic thing about this? I've played Vampire Bloodlines a hell of alot more than I've played HL2. I think I've beaten HL2 twice. I've played VtmB dozens of times, even playing through with the same character just for the fun of it.

However, it is important to note that even without all of Valve's shenanigans, Troika was already in deep financial trouble and most likely would not have survived long after the release of Bloodlines. Even before the release of Bloodlines, they had already failed to obtain financing for any future games and they had nothing planned to go after it (well, they may have had plans, but they had no way to implement them).

Yes and no.
They did have an engine and a game (that looked a lot like Fallout, see video below) in production - they just didn't manage to find a publisher interested in taking it on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYmQyHl2bc <-- engine demo.
Re: Bloodlines, the game didn't only suffer from engine problems. While Troika had great ideas they didn't really seem to be great with project management. Activision eventually put the pressure on. As far as I remember Activision licensed Source, rather than Troika pushing for that (but I can't find any sources to that, anymore).
The amazing thing about Bloodlines is that it is a pretty damn good game despite all the problems.

Thanks for the link - I never knew this. It amazes me how much just never gets Published.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade_%E2%80%93_Bloodlines#Development_and_Sales]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade_%E2%80%93_Bloodlines#Development_and_Sales[/url]

Ye. Troika actually bid for the Fallout license, but lost out to Bethesda. But again, can't find proper source, except this Interview with Leonard Boyarsky: http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=9564

I believe that was actually their proposal for Fallout 3 that got axed once Bethesda obtained the license. Interesting as a look at what could have been.
Still, people seem to blame Valve alone for the "fall of Troika" when the reality is much more complex than that. They released three games to critical success, but minimal sales success. The company itself was pretty well mismanaged to the point where their publishers often had to step in and force games to their completion, which in turn led their games to being a buggy mess. As a company, they were passionate game creators, but horrible businessmen. This is what led to Troika's failure, not Valve's shell game with the Source engine.

Well for what's it worth, I never bought HL2 but I did buy Bloodlines but that's probably more due to Steam than any defect in HL2. Steam is the reason I've not played HL1 (bought it twice, the original box and anthology) since Steams release (game update will probably infect my computer with steam virus).
I also bought Arcanum but missed ToEE due to it being bashed by reviews and never actually seeing retail copy. So I at least did my part trying to keep Troika alive.
Edit: Oh and interesting video. Shame the game never saw the light of day.

Well that's insulting.

Yeah, fuck. Of all the reasons presented on not liking Steam...