To me this is one of the most egregious examples of how licensing massively hurts consumers. The game is fully playable offline (and online with a patch) but cannot legally be sold because of an arbitrary restriction limiting the use of likeness of virtual cars in the game.
Too bad the only way to get it is by pirating it. But in these situations, doesn't piracy become morally acceptable?
It baffles me that this is still an issue, publishers are not concerned with implementing some sort of "kill switch" for expired content to keep getting money for the games. GTA also suffered from this.
What people don't want, as in this case, is for a corporation to have control of the artist's work, and exercise that control mercilessly, thus actually reducing the reach and impact of the artist's work.
(Often, unknowingly to the corporation's own detriment. Having your cars appear in a game is literally free marketing, why refuse that?)
Great game, with some innovative level design involving portals and gravity manipulation. Delisted back in 2009 and impossible to acquire legally to this day on PC.
I remember a level where I went through a portal that led to the surface of a miniature moon, encased in a glass case inside the room that I entered through. Inside the case and miniaturized, I watched the enemy aliens scatter around to look for me. They found me and barged through that portal, so I went back out and smashed them through the case. Alien pussies on the wall, the whole artwork and design of the game was utterly unfettered.
The ending made me feel so… powerful. David and Goliath -core, heavy metal native american going through the spirit land to save the human race from aliens. I didn’t know it was delisted. What a shame.
I actually thought Space Hulk (2013) was amazing but it's hard for a developer to keep up the yearly license payments on any Warhammer franchise. So it's not available for purchase anymore. It got ~75% on reviews on release but i like the board game and it was true to the board game so i personally loved it. Link on the steam store (the site should have these) https://store.steampowered.com/app/242570/Space_Hulk/
Fwiw if you have one of these games they are still in your Steam library. I still get to play the above game. I just can't easily play with others anymore nor can i suggest they purchase that game. I'm a little surprised it still runs fine given no updates but yay for backwards compatibility.
In general a theme for lists like these are licensing. If a developer has to pay a franchise licensing fee it's going to stop being worthwhile at some point. Take note if you're a developer. It's hard to get visibility without being tied to a franchise (Eg. Larian had to do it with Baldurs Gate 3) but it'll cut into profits massively. Even Larian are never doing it again.
everything I've heard since only confirms that that universe would be better dead and never be talked about
Void War game on Steam is a notable one.
I doubt the 40K universe will die any time soon, it has many fans and they are hardcore about it. And it's becoming more and more mainstream (relatively).
I think that their approach to fan uses of their IP is far too tight, and that they'd actually be making more money if they had, say, just licensed it. A bit like how they actually harmed their own hobby videos quite a bit with their reactions to their on-air talent leaving to go independent. Nowadays GW is the last place you'd go for painting videos, and the popular content they still have is old, and created by those people that left. But given the way the law works, they are within their right to manage things badly.
Just this year, I hear a very large percentage of the people that were in their external creators network decided to give up the early access, because the restrictions had become way too tight, even for simple things like people painting their miniatures.
Yeah, GW shenanigans. Like you said, people like the universe they created, not the company and its draconian practices.
But, the DnD IP really got them a massive audience. I’m glad they got a hit, they deserve it. Looking forward to see what they do with their own system and a massive budget.
There was a recent video about Horses, which admittedly was a pre-release, but was technically available for download and is now gone. It is not on this list.
1) Server shutdowns for multiplayer or live service games
2) Breakdowns of developer/publisher relations
3) A remastered version of the game was released
I'm not even attracted to women. It was just enticing to play "the forbidden game".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Shout#2025_Steam_an...
-- Back to the Future: The Game
-- Blur
-- Crysis
-- Dark Souls
-- Dirt 2
-- Dirt 3
-- Dirt Showdown
-- F1 2010 - 2015
-- F1 Race Stars
-- Grand Theft Auto 1, 2, 3, San Andreas, Vice City
-- Grid (2019)
-- Metro 2033
-- Prey (2006)
-- Project CARS
-- ToCA Race Driver 3
-- Transformers: War for Cybertron
-- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
In most cases the games were delisted because of expiring licenses for cars, tracks, music, or studios being purchased by another studio.
It's a bit sad as I consider Crysis and GTA to be an important part of gaming history.
The worst part is the licenses that do exist are non-transferrable, so by the end of this century there will be zero licenses left for these games. They'll just be expunged until they become public domain perhaps in the middle of the next century - if any copies survive.
And what's sad about that is we know for a fact games can survive and be enjoyed for decades, because we have seen this occur for the entire lineage of game-playing machines.
If you use real brands in your videogame you as a developer need to know that it's on a death clock.
That's no good and should be prevented.
Developers could pony up for perpetual licenses if they cared but they don't.
It was always unpopular to be seen as a manipulator, the control freak who "manages" their image with punitive measures. But it has probably never been as unpopular as it is right now. John Deere would be more popular from tossing their brand management lawyers from the fifth floor than they would from listening to them.
The ONLY time a big brand has anything to complain about, is when they are said to have endorsed something they didn't.
A smart brand would be eager to undercut their competitors for licensing-- even to the point of giving them away free, assuming the negotiate positive brand exposure.
Offering a perpetual license would limit the licensor's options (e.g. they could never offer someone else an exclusive license, nor could they adjust the rates if the brand becomes more popular, nor could they terminate if the developer/publisher becomes toxic), so I guess while it's theoretically possible I just don't see why they'd want to offer such a license.
Is Steam obligated to continue to support old games until they no longer exist to support them, or can they stop supporting them at any time?
Then the answer is yes.
https://delistedgames.com/devotion/
Taken down because a background poster depicted "Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh moron".
I'm glad I found this, as it includes a steam:/ URL that lets me re-install it if I'd like to play it again.
That might be a fun list, games with the same name.
These are in Japanese of course.
[1]: https://www.platinedispositif.net/
[2]: https://murasame.hatenablog.jp/entry/20251130/1764507793
The delisting was supposed to be temporary until Capcom removed the dependency, like they did with other titles on the same engine, but so far they haven't bothered restoring this one.
- are they preventing new purchases?
- are they preventing the players who purchased the game prior to the delisting to play them at all?
- both? something else?
"This is a place for those who have a moderately large collection of removed games (games no longer available for purchase on steam) to gather. For most, this group will just be about the name, showing off that you own what others no longer can. For others, it can be a resource to find what you once believed could no longer be found."
>Lumines was delisted from Steam on June 22nd, 2018. The delisting coincides with the release of Lumines Remastered just a few days later
So there's a tactic of delisting a game to promote a remastered version.
imagine removing the original lionking for the same reason
Three games I will cherish in my Steam Library (and my physical PS3 copy of War for Cybertron). Anything Transformers based since these have been mediocre at best.
if i delete it i lose the game right?
One area where content can disappear is music licenses, those often don't result in a complete delisting of the game, but just the music getting patched out of the game. In those cases, the music would be gone for everybody, as Steam game updates are mandatory and you can't downgrade the game to a previous version either. Unofficial mods will sometimes address this issue and add the music back in.
For Crusader Kings III, the old versions are listed as betas (cog -> properties -> betas) so you downgrade by "signing up to a beta".
I don't know if it's a common practice but pretty damn necessary for paradox games. A single game might take months and their attitude to backwards compatibility is "new versions will corrupt your game files in ways that only subtly reveal themselves like noticing the King of England owns a county in Mongolia before reaching a game year that will always crash".
You can usually download old versions from the CDN using tools like steamcmd. Developers can remove the old depots, but usually don't.
Tangentially related but even though the Nintendo 3DS e-shop has been shutdown for years you can still download your purchased games through your download history.
I was very happy just last week I was able to redownload Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for my 3DS despite the store being down.
It gives me at least a little bit of confidence that having some games as part of a digital library on the Switch and Switch 2 will be easily available for the foreseeable future.
I remember that many games I had in my wishlist became "blank" or removed, and I was unable to know what games were those
That’s actually a case with a lot of games on the list that got a remake, director’s cut, upgraded edition etc.
Really, it would be nice if every listing had a 1 or 2 word tag that summarized the reason for the de-listing.
Publisher Closed
Servers Shut Down
Remastered
License Expired
TOS Violation
That sort of thing.
Now, if there's actually a better release of the same game, then sure it should be at least tagged clearly.
You can check by copying the url of the blank game and pasting it into SteamDB's search field.
I'm quite surprised Epic hasn't done something to kill off the Steam version yet, but I expect the recent bot problem is going to give them the "justification" they need to put EAC in it. Even if it "works" on Linux after that, I'll be in constant fear that my account, with hundreds of dollars into the game, will get banned without recourse.
Quite right! I really don't blame you, given the direction that Windows has taken in the last decade, and especially the last few years. The LLM integration is bad enough (Kids and LLMs should not mix, IMHO), but he adverts in the start menu could be anything. I've had some very explicit 18+ adverts on a social media platform twice this week, despite not engaging with that kind of thing at all, and the best I could do was report them.
> I'm quite surprised Epic hasn't done something to kill off the Steam version yet, but I expect the recent bot problem is going to give them the "justification" they need to put EAC in it. Even if it "works" on Linux after that, I'll be in constant fear that my account, with hundreds of dollars into the game, will get banned without recourse.
For what it's worth, Easy Anti-Cheat is supported and doesn't ban you for using Linux.
subjecting myself, or my kid, to Windows and the Epic store just to get at it.