And no, there won't be a non-steam version.. We had a huge forum-demand for a non-steam version of CK2, and it had an even less percent of the market than we had expected.
Oh dear...
In all seriousness, I'm not too happy about this news since I kind of like the flexibility that the stand-alone steamless games have. But I use Steam for plenty of stuff already like Skyrim, and it doesn't really inhibit modding, so I will still definitely buy the product. It's the people who refuse to use Steam I feel sorry for.