True, true. Eight and Eagic Dark Eissiah sounds better enyway.

i bought that game twice on disk. I would buy it again. Just saying.

one word, since everyone is kinda pissy and won't just say it: Steam.

the game was built with the Source engine, which was given to Arkane pretty much for free since some of the head guys at Valve are fans of Ax Faralis.

there is probably some kind of exclusive steam release clause floating around somewhere as a result. outside of contractual issues, getting it DRM free would mean cutting Steam out of the game's code, something that probably isn't possible.

to my knowledge there has only been one source engine based game that has shipped to the PC without steam: Vindictus.

However, the singleplayer part is Steam-free and the multiplayer part uses Steamworks. And while it may be sold here as a singleplayer only game, I don't think people would be happy in that case.

Out of curiosity, are Source games generally availabke (digitally) outside Steam? Apart from the recent GameStop deal.

Well ... Actually, original release of Dark Messiah was retail, without Steam. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines doesn't use Steam ither.

I mean nowadays. Do any digital distributors run source games apart from Steam or GameStop?

Well have a look here, friend:
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Source_engine_games]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Source_engine_games[/url]

Most of them are Valve titles anyway, which recently went on Impulse or something?
Don't seem to be that many 'modern' games using that engine any more, but I'm pretty sure that E.Y.E. was on at least one other DD platform.

Bloodlines like Dark Messiah was designed to work outside of "Steam" most other "Source" games require steam and its archive management to load and launch titles... With bloodlines and DM, they were given the engine as is with no ties to "steam" at all. it was a pure engine designed to run stand-alone... though the DRM on DM was insane... most just linked it to steam... and if they do drop it over it'll be stand-alone single-player multiplayer is completely is separate from the game launches an entirely different way, its technically its own game just sharing resources...

so yeah we could someday see it here... it was a great game, and i hope they would use the latest patch but its short, beatable in a day or two... while Two Worlds could take you a few weeks to fully explorer.

on a side note, the forums search function is kinda sad, needs some beef...

Relevance? No conclusions were reached in that thread beyond the fact that it needed Steam for multiplayer. That won't stop GOG from releasing the single player portion as you well know.

*sigh* the issue is not if it's been sold on steam, IT'S NOT HAVING STEAM WITHIN THE GAMES CODE!!!!!

steam is DRM, GOG is DRM-FREE!

your right on the Bloodlines being a second Source engine without Steam integrated into it's code, I forgot about that one, but reworking DM for GOG's standards would probably amount to more than just swishing a wand while chanting expeloramous DRM-ous.

nothing is ever impossible when it comes to programing, but at the least it would require a new multiplayer backbone since that's entirely dependent on Steamworks.

this game is a Source game through and through, not steamworks, SOURCE. it's not like Dues Ex HR or any of the other high profile Steamworks games that use another engine with Steam's DRM package. Steam is part of the game's engine at this point, your talking about a major rewrite of the game's code simply to flopp it up on here for $9.99.

*edit* no, the game was not shipped without steam. I too have a retail boxed copy, and the first thing it did (even before installing the game) was install Steam then politely inform me that I was gonna use it.

I remember this because it was my first steam game.

GOG would simply ditch the multiplayer. I think we can take that to be a fact.

It's not GOG's call, it would be Ubisoft's call ....