Well, the thing is that Activision or not, once you install the unofficial patch to get rid of all the bugs, it's a great RPG, at least the first half of the game is. It has great dialog, a solid story, excellent atmosphere and is really good at providing multiple solutions to quests for different character builds.
Plus it's one of only a few decent games about vampires, and those tend to be popular.

The second half is unfortunately much more combat-heavy, and the combat system is the weakest part of the game, not to mention the fact that it can make the game really hard for an unprepared player who built a non-combat PC, who's viable up to that point.

But even if you only end up playing the first half of the game, then giving up in disgust, it's still a great experience imo.


Edit: Also, the original devs aren't gone, most of them are working for Obsidian now.
But you're right they probably don't have the rights to any royalties from this game, but then again that's the typical deal for non-indies devs. In exchange for funding, they give up any rights to the game and earn nothing from sales except for possibly a bonus.

The fscking price is, I believe, what is holding it back. Jeez, it's from 2004 and it is still 20 bucks. If GOG is ever able to slap Activision enough to get them lower it to 9.99, then I believe we'll see it.

BUT it could also be the compatibility issues that people are mentioning.

Considering some of the games GOG has available above $9.99, I think Bloodlines for $19.99 would fit in just fine.

Well, system shoch 2 had, what, 30k or so before it got here. But then again, those rights were a mess, and still are. If I would make a guess, it's something in activisions end. The whole thing is a mess of it's own with all the aquisitions, purchases and mergers. Also, from what I read in wikipedia, Activision seems to be concentrating on consoles these days and they, like many other videogame developing and publishing giants are in financial trouble. Few 100k $ from possible sales of VTMB (233 million loses in fourth quarter of 2010 alone) would not fix it. I wonder if only thing keeping them afloat is Blizzard under umbrella of Activision Blizard.
Are there any 9 years old games on GOG with price ver 9.99$?

No idea.

From what I've read, GOG tries to avoid pricing anything over 9.99 that couldn't be classified as "new", or new-ish. Something like this falls into the "old" category in my opinion, so I actually appreciate them holding true to this belief (if it is true). If the game had an expansion pack or something else (like Rollercoaster Tycoon 3), I might understand a bit more, but as VTMB is I prefer to not see it appear here for over 9.99.

2008 has Race Driver: GRID for 14.99, and 2009 has King's Bounty: Crossworlds GOTY for 24.99.

Can't say I subscribe to that philosophy. Would rather have Bloodlines here for $20, which it is worth age notwithstanding, than any of the new/new-ish titles we do have.

I'm not a big indie/ new games fan either - I was kind of "fighting" the change from Good Old Games for a while there - and I'd prefer GOG stick to 19.99 or below for ALL games. I mean, I'm not desperate to play Bloodlines, so I prefer GOG wait for it to end up at 9.99, but it is VERY high on the wishlist so maybe the majority don't care if it's still 19.99.

As I posted earlier, price probably isn't the problem.
The fact is that during the (long) time VtM: Bloodlines has been available for sale digitally, it has ALWAYS been an exclusive (for Direct2Drive, then DotEmu, then Steam).
This is very unlikely to change now that it's Steam only.

I was under the impression that at some point it was available for sale both on DotEmu and Steam, not sure if that was 2012 or 2011 though. Want me to go digging through the Gaming Deals thread?

That's possible I suppose, but even if it's true it might only mean that whoever is in charge of the rights jumped on the chance to get on Steam, but had a medium-term contract with DotEmu they couldn't get out of immediately.

My point is that if the game, despite being a cult classic (since it's a very good game with the unofficial patch), stayed as an exclusive for Direct2Drive for years, it's unlikely to stop being a Steam exclusive any time soon.

I could be wrong of course, but I really wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

I remember that we discussed whether Bloodlines would "also be pulled from Steam" after it had been pulled from DotEmu, so it must have been available on both platforms prior to vanishing from DotEmu.