About one of my favorite racing games of all time: "The game could have been removed for a number of reasons, including the closure of developer Bizarre Creations in early 2011, but the most likely cause was expired licensing of the real-world cars featured in the game."[1]
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.
It becomes a moral imperative to pirate it and continue seeding it for others to also acquire, as a mean to help preserving something you cared about, apparently more than the owners of the IP/rights themselves care.
> It becomes a moral imperative to pirate it and continue seeding it for others to also acquire, as a mean to help preserving something you cared about, apparently more than the owners of the IP/rights themselves care.
Your words brought me right back to my teenage years sitting at the family computer at 12am babysitting a couple of song downloads to burn onto a CD for my friends to listen to on the bus ride.
Kinda random and only tangentially related but the thought brought a smile to my face and I just felt like sharing and saying thanks!
Heh, I too remember the stress and rush of burning car-listening CDs right before long car trips, trying to set the write speed to slower and slower after each failed attempt, and finally succeeding burning it, only to find out that the car didn't actually have any CD reader at all, and could only do cassette. Waiting for DC++, Kazaa or LimeWire to finish a download only to find out that of course, it's some Britney song instead.
Simpler times for sure, unsure if it was actually better or not though, we certainly aren't as young as we used to be :)
Wow this looks pretty rad, I wish I knew about it before! Having real cars in the game really makes it more fun to me. I dunno why, but playing racing games with a bunch of fake cars isn't as exciting (Super Mario Kart being an exception). It's especially fun when you see one of your cars, or a friend's car in the game.
People generally always want the artist to have control.
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?)
Probably copyright needs to be amended to belong to an individual or a team that comprises not more of 5 people. No corpos can hold copyright or if they do, they must upfront declare the individual/team that holds it.
The problem is not a matter of artist control. Rather, it's a problem with how license agreements are handled--license agreements for product-breaking things with timeframes should generally not be permitted. It's a version of planned obsolescence.
The same is currently happening with Forza games (at least Horizon ones, not sure about original Motorsport series). You can only buy the latest game, others have been delisted. You can still get physical copies, but the DLCs have been delisted as well, so you can't get the full version, at least not officially. And more than that, the online servers have been shut down as well.
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.
yeah, that's the whole point, thye still let you install the games you bought because not doing so would open a huge can of worms and re-start the whole "are you really buying games on steam or just renting them?" discussion, which they are very keen on avoiding
It's funny that 3 different Space Hulk games are here.
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.
Possibly this is a hot-take, but: Divinity Original Sin 2 was better than Baldurs Gate 3. The combat is so much better (DnD combat in a video game is always too swingy, the system relies on having a sentient DM who can make a story happen even after you critical fail). The things people like about BG3 (the story and characters) could have been done just as well Larian’s system. DnD probably hindered the actual quality of the game.
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.
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).
The "If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device" youtube series, which was in some ways one of the best pieces of Warhammer content made in years, had to be stopped because GW gave the author a cease-and-desist.
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.
Henry Cavill would have words with you. There are some extremely die-hard fans in the U.K. just like there are die hard fans of Star Wars here in the US.
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've got this game in my steam library, and I wondered why no one ever talks about it. I never realized it was delisted and made impossible to buy so long ago.
Until I looked it up, I almost thought my memory of it was the Bernstein effect especially since there’s a 2017 game by the same name and much more popular.
The sequel to Prey (2006) was stuck in development hell for really long until they finally scrapped it, so the publisher placed the trademark on a completely different but similarly themed game instead.
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.
The scene with the planetoid hovering in the middle of a room was made me remember the game despite playing it more than 15 years ago. It was so ahead of its time!
There's a set of licensed music in the game that's likely another reason too sadly. Pretty unique game for the time and I'd redeemed it on Steam from the cd key in a used physical copy I bought dirt cheap.
Mostly seems to be games where the licensing deal expired or the company folded. I was expecting to see a few more from the adult category that got delisted because someone noticed TOS violating material and reported it.
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.
Idk how common it is anymore, but one game (which seems to be missing from this list) I know was removed from Steam after the early access launch from a Kickstarter campaign. The developers essentially quickly ghosted the game after the EA, considering the Kickstarter complete and taking their money. It was seen as a pretty big scandal in the early days when we had some standards.
I've never purchased an adult game on steam, but I leave them on because it's quite funny sometimes to stumble across them in my discovery queue. Lots of them have excellent reviews. Not as in they always leave glowing reviews. But they leave gooner reviews that make me chuckle. From the games I've seen advertised, I'm not sure what sort of sexual content would get a game delisted from Steam. Some are "artsy" projects, but many are straight up porn simulators.
I remember when I was a kid I found a game where the goal was to sexually harass girls. It was in the times where sex crime in games was "a strange Japanese thing" rather than "a deadly sin". I distinctly remember a level where I was supposed to harass a girl in the subway but the only action I knew how to perform was clicking on the titty so I massaged the fuck out of that titty. It was funny.
I'm not even attracted to women. It was just enticing to play "the forbidden game".
I initially assumed this was related to the delisting of NSFW related games on Steam due to payment processor pressure as a result of the Australian group Collective Shout.
It's all gaming history and a sadly-overlooked part of "Stop Killing Games".
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.
That presumes you can find someone to agree to those terms (which you won't), and if they do, that it isn't a prohibitively expensive fee (which it would be).
The license should be to use the likeness for a given purpose. Either make it perpetual or per copy, not per time. Product breaking licenses should not be allowed in most situations.
I just wonder why movies get away with licenses for both music and depicting cars etc. for eternity. Seems like they just added weird unnecessary rules for video games. I also imagine a situation where Stephen King has to renew with Plymouth every few years. Seems ridiculous for any other art form why is it so easily accepted for this one?
There are only 1,038 delisted games out of 100,000+ games on Steam, so there are willing licensors. Some may offer perpetual licenses, but want a royalty. It might be easier to delist a game than to manage the ongoing paperwork.
Most games don't have that sort of licensed content to start with, so comparing to the total population of games isn't meaningful.
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.
It is meaningful if the claim that perpetual licenses don't exist. They do. The terminology is often mocked, but comes in handy in case like this: "in perpetuity, throughout the universe".
I despise that licensing is a thing in video games. They're an art form and you should be able to depict whatever you want. I don't care if Porsche, John Deere or Sig Sauer get their feelings hurt because someone made art.
If you call something a Porsche, John Deere, or a Sig Sauer and inaccurately represent it you're doing brand damage especially in the modern era where it could become a toxic meme on TikTok or whatever.
That's no good and should be prevented.
Developers could pony up for perpetual licenses if they cared but they don't.
This is a thing dreamed up by IP lawyers to justify their own employment. Brands do far more damage to themselves by suing small companies than they could ever take from being represented in a work of art, even negatively.
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.
I was under the impression that most gameplay scenarios are positive exposure for real-world brands. The kid who spends 500 hours of his childhood driving around specific cars in games is developing brand preferences before he ever steps foot in a dealership.
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.
I'm sure perp licences are more expensive, also nobody should be forbidden from using brands for artistic purposes. If a company licences the color "red" for their branding and it henceforth requires licencing for use they can shove that idea up their rear
Depends on what you mean by "still work". If you bought them, you can download and play them. If you mean "Do they work on modern OS", it depends entirely on the game. You also have games that are still being sold but don't properly work on modern OSes without community patches (one example is Max Payne 1).
At least the GTA games and metro 2033 are still available for purchase on steam, just the remastered versions. When they released those, the older versions were delisted
At least for the PC versions of Vice City and San Andreas, the originals are missing the music too. A bunch of licenses expired 10 years after release and the Steam releases got updated accordingly.
Ahh, there seems to be a distinction between "delisted" and "purchase disabled". This is a list of all games which are no longer available on steam along with the reason: https://steam-tracker.com/
Oh, it includes the Abuse-like HL2 platformer that I played while waiting for HL2 to install, apparently named "Codename: Gordon". https://delistedgames.com/codename-gordon/
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.
This can’t be all of them. My business partner and I delisted our tiny (unsuccessful) indie game after we wound up our company and our game doesn’t show up here.
Ultimately, all the datasets on Steam are scraped one way or another, since Steam themselves don't seem to publish it. I could be that they simply never came across your project before you delisted it, and of course after delisiting it I don't think they'll ever come across it.
Hm yeah. We removed it a few years ago now so I assume they should have found it though. We followed these instructions and had to contact valve and give a justification https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/retire_app I don’t remember the details of the form but maybe there were options and one amounts to being delisted and another amounts to just no longer being visible and available for sale.
"Deslisted" == "no longer being visible". If it's delisted it won't show up in search results, tag listings and more. So if you just had it online for a few weeks, that was the only moment the scrapers could find it. If they didn't catch it at that point, they'll never catch it.
The nice move in this scenario would have been to make the game free instead of delisting. Gamers can still enjoy it, and you don't have to worry about income once the company is closed.
It actually is free on itch.io, and people on steam who bought it still have access to it. Keeping it on steam required us to maintain our company registration which we didn’t want to do since it’s a waste of money and time as we weren’t planning on doing anything more with it.
I was surprised to see that StarForge wasn't on this list, and after looking into it I think it's because after it was delisted someone else published another game named StarForge. I wonder how common that is.
What are the uniqueness requirements for titles, For the most part people are reasonable and don't want to stomp on each others names. however there are bad actors and this is usually where trademark law comes into play to help protect the name, but does steam impose additional uniqueness constraints on top of this?
That might be a fun list, games with the same name.
I bought my 2 yo a copy of Rocket League when they announced it would only be available through Epic (no Linux support) once it went F2P, just in case he was going to get into it. Best game in the world, but I'm not subjecting myself, or my kid, to Windows and the Epic store just to get at it.
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.
> Best game in the world, but I'm not subjecting myself, or my kid, to Windows and the Epic store just to get at it.
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.
Subjecting is a weird word choice here considering most of us rely on using Windows in some fashion in our education or work. Which OS or store you use is not your identity and EGS takes a significantly smaller cut from developers, so I prefer to buy there when I can as I don't care for social features from Steam aside from the workshop on some games.
I loved Blacklight Retribution. It's been so long delisted that my most unique achievements from it disappeared from my profile. One was 0.01% of all players.
It's surprising that it doesn't seem like the X-ray mechanic (which is the main thing I remember from that game) was really picked up by any other game. There were way fewer cheating accusations than in other games, because what would normally be a "cheat" was a core game mechanic, and IMO that made it really enjoyable. It's a shame that game died.
There is a fan project that has revived the servers. It’s hard to get full matches but can still be played at least. It’s called BLRevive, there’s a Discord for it. IMO the only bad thing is it’s based on the post-PS4 update where the devs console-fied the game.
I'm sad that Platine Dispositif pulled their games. Chelsea Has to Beat the Seven Devils to Death (known more widely in English as Bunny Must Die) was a lot of fun and one day I'd like to play some of their others, but they mostly seem to just release on Switch and Playstation stores in recent years. Their site[1] is getting pretty bitrotted, and their blog has an entry from a month ago[2] talking about their next game displayed in Digital Games Expo 2025. I don't immediately see any mention of Steam or intent to return anywhere.
Lost Planet 2 was delisted in 2021 because it can't be played without patching out Games for Windows Live.
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.
The older Metro games are of note, while they're available as the Redux versions there are a surprising number of non-graphical differences between the original THQ published versions and the graphical updates.
"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."
Jesus I thought it'd be obscure games but I randomly scrolled down and saw Duke Nukem games, a bunch of the F1 series, Jet Set Radio, Lumines, Mafia III, MultiVersus (don't care about this I just remember _so many_ people being paid to stream this, there was a lot of money behind it) and Wolfenstein (2009). I had no idea this was so prevalent
Seems to have delisted but not unlisted games (e.g. https://store.steampowered.com/app/302850/Team_Indie/ "At the request of the publisher, Team Indie is unlisted on the Steam store and will not appear in search.")
Transformers: War For Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, and (especially) Devastation.
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.
This site has a tag for games that get relisted, but it really needs one for games that got remastered as well. It's a bit misleading to say a game is gone when you can still buy the GOTY version.
Really, it would be nice if every listing had a 1 or 2 word tag that summarized the reason for the de-listing.
It's only misleading to say so if the edition that replaces it is not strictly worse in at least one axis: Botched remasters, full remakes, unrenewed licenses, ports from a worse version of the game instead of the original...
Now, if there's actually a better release of the same game, then sure it should be at least tagged clearly.
No, the games just disappear from the shop and can no longer be bought via Steam. When you are already own them, you keep them. Third party seller might sometimes also still sell remaining Steam Key inventory and thus offer a way to activate a delisted game on Steam.
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.
> Steam game updates are mandatory and you can't downgrade the game to a previous version either.
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".
The are delisted for purchase but still available to download from Steam’s CDN for the Steam client. I own 3 delisted Transformers games but was able to reinstall them recently.
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.
We should just setup a review portal at the Dept of State, Visa, MasterCard, maybe moms against drunk driving, a few others, and devs can sanity check their game idea before submitting to steam
When you bought a game and it becomes unavailable, due to delisting, you care.
It shows a general problem we have with online license's for movies, series and games. You buy the product and at some point later in time you loose access because something changed outside of your control. This is different from VHS/CD/DVD/BluRays where I can use the product even years after purchasing, despite a company loosing the license or simply not existing anymore.
FWIW Delisting in this context is just removing it from the store for purchase. It doesn't remove it from your library, nor remove your ability to download it.
Your concerns for digital licenses are totally valid but his specific topic isn't that.
About one of my favorite racing games of all time: "The game could have been removed for a number of reasons, including the closure of developer Bizarre Creations in early 2011, but the most likely cause was expired licensing of the real-world cars featured in the game."[1]
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.
[1] https://delistedgames.com/blur/
The title track of the game, Smile by Crystal Method [0] is one of my all time favorites as a result of playing Blur.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EbkSMPbj_I
woah, sick track!
+1 for Blur, great game, it's like Super Mario Kart for grown-ups.
Too bad the only way to get it is by pirating it. But in these situations, doesn't piracy become morally acceptable?
It becomes a moral imperative to pirate it and continue seeding it for others to also acquire, as a mean to help preserving something you cared about, apparently more than the owners of the IP/rights themselves care.
> It becomes a moral imperative to pirate it and continue seeding it for others to also acquire, as a mean to help preserving something you cared about, apparently more than the owners of the IP/rights themselves care.
Your words brought me right back to my teenage years sitting at the family computer at 12am babysitting a couple of song downloads to burn onto a CD for my friends to listen to on the bus ride.
Kinda random and only tangentially related but the thought brought a smile to my face and I just felt like sharing and saying thanks!
Heh, I too remember the stress and rush of burning car-listening CDs right before long car trips, trying to set the write speed to slower and slower after each failed attempt, and finally succeeding burning it, only to find out that the car didn't actually have any CD reader at all, and could only do cassette. Waiting for DC++, Kazaa or LimeWire to finish a download only to find out that of course, it's some Britney song instead.
Simpler times for sure, unsure if it was actually better or not though, we certainly aren't as young as we used to be :)
Wow this looks pretty rad, I wish I knew about it before! Having real cars in the game really makes it more fun to me. I dunno why, but playing racing games with a bunch of fake cars isn't as exciting (Super Mario Kart being an exception). It's especially fun when you see one of your cars, or a friend's car in the game.
Yes, I think it's super funny to race with a Ford Transit in Blur!
It's one of the best arcade racing games ever made
This is the double edged sword of copyright, sometimes you want the artist to have control, sometimes you don't.
People generally always want the artist to have control.
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?)
The engineers at the car company that designed the body in the first place are also artists.
They have as much control over this as I do, i.e. none at all.
Probably copyright needs to be amended to belong to an individual or a team that comprises not more of 5 people. No corpos can hold copyright or if they do, they must upfront declare the individual/team that holds it.
The artist is allowed to be a group of people, or sell their art to another person or group of people, who then get the same control.
The problem is not a matter of artist control. Rather, it's a problem with how license agreements are handled--license agreements for product-breaking things with timeframes should generally not be permitted. It's a version of planned obsolescence.
Blur is my favorite racing game of all time. I keep a sealed copy of the 360 version in my home as a little homage to the fun I've had with it.
The same is currently happening with Forza games (at least Horizon ones, not sure about original Motorsport series). You can only buy the latest game, others have been delisted. You can still get physical copies, but the DLCs have been delisted as well, so you can't get the full version, at least not officially. And more than that, the online servers have been shut down as well.
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.
You may appreciate the game Split/Second, its in a similar vein.
oh yeah, I'm a fan of this game too. To my surprise, even though it's delisted I can still install it. That's certainly better than the alternative.
I think you can install games that you bought (when they were available), even if they're delisted.
yeah, that's the whole point, thye still let you install the games you bought because not doing so would open a huge can of worms and re-start the whole "are you really buying games on steam or just renting them?" discussion, which they are very keen on avoiding
It's funny that 3 different Space Hulk games are here.
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.
Possibly this is a hot-take, but: Divinity Original Sin 2 was better than Baldurs Gate 3. The combat is so much better (DnD combat in a video game is always too swingy, the system relies on having a sentient DM who can make a story happen even after you critical fail). The things people like about BG3 (the story and characters) could have been done just as well Larian’s system. DnD probably hindered the actual quality of the game.
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.
I've had negative opinion on company behind Warhammer ever since Emperor TTS debacle
everything I've heard since only confirms that that universe would be better dead and never be talked about
I've been noticing a bit of 'totally not Warhammer but grimdark and space marines' settings being used more these days.
Void War game on Steam is a notable one.
What was the debacle?
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).
The "If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device" youtube series, which was in some ways one of the best pieces of Warhammer content made in years, had to be stopped because GW gave the author a cease-and-desist.
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.
Ah, thanks for the info.
Yeah, GW shenanigans. Like you said, people like the universe they created, not the company and its draconian practices.
Henry Cavill would have words with you. There are some extremely die-hard fans in the U.K. just like there are die hard fans of Star Wars here in the US.
Lots of people love the Warhammer universe. Far fewer people love Games Workshop as a company.
Just like there’s lots of people that love Star Wars and far fewer that love Disney?
Or even George Lucas.
Prey (2006) https://delistedgames.com/prey/
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've got this game in my steam library, and I wondered why no one ever talks about it. I never realized it was delisted and made impossible to buy so long ago.
The original story was definitely unique and a fun play on 360.
Until I looked it up, I almost thought my memory of it was the Bernstein effect especially since there’s a 2017 game by the same name and much more popular.
The sequel to Prey (2006) was stuck in development hell for really long until they finally scrapped it, so the publisher placed the trademark on a completely different but similarly themed game instead.
Amazing game.
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.
The scene with the planetoid hovering in the middle of a room was made me remember the game despite playing it more than 15 years ago. It was so ahead of its time!
There's a set of licensed music in the game that's likely another reason too sadly. Pretty unique game for the time and I'd redeemed it on Steam from the cd key in a used physical copy I bought dirt cheap.
The intro and first level is one hell of a ride. Had no idea it was delisted but that explains why nobody's talking about it...
You can still get it used on disc. Pretty sure it predates being a Steam key in a box.
One of the most creative and original games ever made.
Mostly seems to be games where the licensing deal expired or the company folded. I was expecting to see a few more from the adult category that got delisted because someone noticed TOS violating material and reported it.
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.
Yeah, brand licensing seems to be by far the most common reason for games to be delisted. A couple of other common ones seem to be:
1) Server shutdowns for multiplayer or live service games
2) Breakdowns of developer/publisher relations
3) A remastered version of the game was released
Idk how common it is anymore, but one game (which seems to be missing from this list) I know was removed from Steam after the early access launch from a Kickstarter campaign. The developers essentially quickly ghosted the game after the EA, considering the Kickstarter complete and taking their money. It was seen as a pretty big scandal in the early days when we had some standards.
I've never purchased an adult game on steam, but I leave them on because it's quite funny sometimes to stumble across them in my discovery queue. Lots of them have excellent reviews. Not as in they always leave glowing reviews. But they leave gooner reviews that make me chuckle. From the games I've seen advertised, I'm not sure what sort of sexual content would get a game delisted from Steam. Some are "artsy" projects, but many are straight up porn simulators.
I remember when I was a kid I found a game where the goal was to sexually harass girls. It was in the times where sex crime in games was "a strange Japanese thing" rather than "a deadly sin". I distinctly remember a level where I was supposed to harass a girl in the subway but the only action I knew how to perform was clicking on the titty so I massaged the fuck out of that titty. It was funny.
I'm not even attracted to women. It was just enticing to play "the forbidden game".
One of the more interesting ones is the Taiwanese game Devotion:
https://delistedgames.com/devotion/
Taken down because a background poster depicted "Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh moron".
I initially assumed this was related to the delisting of NSFW related games on Steam due to payment processor pressure as a result of the Australian group Collective Shout.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Shout#2025_Steam_an...
Great resource. I have a fair number of them purchased.
-- 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.
It's all gaming history and a sadly-overlooked part of "Stop Killing Games".
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.
Same reason why Ace combat will never get a remake.
If you use real brands in your videogame you as a developer need to know that it's on a death clock.
Or just sign a licensing deal that doesn’t expire?
That presumes you can find someone to agree to those terms (which you won't), and if they do, that it isn't a prohibitively expensive fee (which it would be).
Why wouldn't they?
The license should be to use the likeness for a given purpose. Either make it perpetual or per copy, not per time. Product breaking licenses should not be allowed in most situations.
No licensor is going to do that.
I just wonder why movies get away with licenses for both music and depicting cars etc. for eternity. Seems like they just added weird unnecessary rules for video games. I also imagine a situation where Stephen King has to renew with Plymouth every few years. Seems ridiculous for any other art form why is it so easily accepted for this one?
There are only 1,038 delisted games out of 100,000+ games on Steam, so there are willing licensors. Some may offer perpetual licenses, but want a royalty. It might be easier to delist a game than to manage the ongoing paperwork.
Most games don't have that sort of licensed content to start with, so comparing to the total population of games isn't meaningful.
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.
It is meaningful if the claim that perpetual licenses don't exist. They do. The terminology is often mocked, but comes in handy in case like this: "in perpetuity, throughout the universe".
I despise that licensing is a thing in video games. They're an art form and you should be able to depict whatever you want. I don't care if Porsche, John Deere or Sig Sauer get their feelings hurt because someone made art.
If you call something a Porsche, John Deere, or a Sig Sauer and inaccurately represent it you're doing brand damage especially in the modern era where it could become a toxic meme on TikTok or whatever.
That's no good and should be prevented.
Developers could pony up for perpetual licenses if they cared but they don't.
This is a thing dreamed up by IP lawyers to justify their own employment. Brands do far more damage to themselves by suing small companies than they could ever take from being represented in a work of art, even negatively.
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.
I was under the impression that most gameplay scenarios are positive exposure for real-world brands. The kid who spends 500 hours of his childhood driving around specific cars in games is developing brand preferences before he ever steps foot in a dealership.
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.
I definitely agree with you but lawyers don't do common sense.
I'm sure perp licences are more expensive, also nobody should be forbidden from using brands for artistic purposes. If a company licences the color "red" for their branding and it henceforth requires licencing for use they can shove that idea up their rear
By that logic you should be charged licensing fees to post a product review online
#+ BEGIN_ART
Here's my John Deere™ tractor:
It's a heap of shit, overpriced and unrepairable. It smells like farts, but does have a sweet green paintjob.#+ END_ART
Should I have asked the corpos for a license before exhibiting my art?
Do all of these still work?
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?
Depends on what you mean by "still work". If you bought them, you can download and play them. If you mean "Do they work on modern OS", it depends entirely on the game. You also have games that are still being sold but don't properly work on modern OSes without community patches (one example is Max Payne 1).
If you are asking if I can still download and play them?
Then the answer is yes.
At least the GTA games and metro 2033 are still available for purchase on steam, just the remastered versions. When they released those, the older versions were delisted
Rereleased GTA games have a lot of iconic music removed from their radio soundtracks due to expired licenses.
At least for the PC versions of Vice City and San Andreas, the originals are missing the music too. A bunch of licenses expired 10 years after release and the Steam releases got updated accordingly.
It doesn't feel the same playing GTA4 without the music.
Ahh, there seems to be a distinction between "delisted" and "purchase disabled". This is a list of all games which are no longer available on steam along with the reason: https://steam-tracker.com/
Oh, it includes the Abuse-like HL2 platformer that I played while waiting for HL2 to install, apparently named "Codename: Gordon". https://delistedgames.com/codename-gordon/
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.
The URL is actually owned by a Youtuber.
https://www.nuclearvision.de/ (the link in the game) now redirects to his Youtube video.
This can’t be all of them. My business partner and I delisted our tiny (unsuccessful) indie game after we wound up our company and our game doesn’t show up here.
Ultimately, all the datasets on Steam are scraped one way or another, since Steam themselves don't seem to publish it. I could be that they simply never came across your project before you delisted it, and of course after delisiting it I don't think they'll ever come across it.
Hm yeah. We removed it a few years ago now so I assume they should have found it though. We followed these instructions and had to contact valve and give a justification https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/retire_app I don’t remember the details of the form but maybe there were options and one amounts to being delisted and another amounts to just no longer being visible and available for sale.
"Deslisted" == "no longer being visible". If it's delisted it won't show up in search results, tag listings and more. So if you just had it online for a few weeks, that was the only moment the scrapers could find it. If they didn't catch it at that point, they'll never catch it.
Ah yeah, I guess https://steam-tracker.com/ scrapes regularly as it shows up there (it's called Resynth)
The nice move in this scenario would have been to make the game free instead of delisting. Gamers can still enjoy it, and you don't have to worry about income once the company is closed.
It actually is free on itch.io, and people on steam who bought it still have access to it. Keeping it on steam required us to maintain our company registration which we didn’t want to do since it’s a waste of money and time as we weren’t planning on doing anything more with it.
Ah, that makes sense.
what is the game?
It's a musical puzzle game called Resynth: https://polyphoniclp.itch.io/resynth It's like a cross between sokoban and a step sequencer!
I was surprised to see that StarForge wasn't on this list, and after looking into it I think it's because after it was delisted someone else published another game named StarForge. I wonder how common that is.
What are the uniqueness requirements for titles, For the most part people are reasonable and don't want to stomp on each others names. however there are bad actors and this is usually where trademark law comes into play to help protect the name, but does steam impose additional uniqueness constraints on top of this?
That might be a fun list, games with the same name.
I bought my 2 yo a copy of Rocket League when they announced it would only be available through Epic (no Linux support) once it went F2P, just in case he was going to get into it. Best game in the world, but I'm not subjecting myself, or my kid, to Windows and the Epic store just to get at it.
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.
> Best game in the world, but I'm not subjecting myself, or my kid, to Windows and the Epic store just to get at it.
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.
I loved Blacklight Retribution. It's been so long delisted that my most unique achievements from it disappeared from my profile. One was 0.01% of all players.
It's surprising that it doesn't seem like the X-ray mechanic (which is the main thing I remember from that game) was really picked up by any other game. There were way fewer cheating accusations than in other games, because what would normally be a "cheat" was a core game mechanic, and IMO that made it really enjoyable. It's a shame that game died.
There is a fan project that has revived the servers. It’s hard to get full matches but can still be played at least. It’s called BLRevive, there’s a Discord for it. IMO the only bad thing is it’s based on the post-PS4 update where the devs console-fied the game.
I'm sad that Platine Dispositif pulled their games. Chelsea Has to Beat the Seven Devils to Death (known more widely in English as Bunny Must Die) was a lot of fun and one day I'd like to play some of their others, but they mostly seem to just release on Switch and Playstation stores in recent years. Their site[1] is getting pretty bitrotted, and their blog has an entry from a month ago[2] talking about their next game displayed in Digital Games Expo 2025. I don't immediately see any mention of Steam or intent to return anywhere.
These are in Japanese of course.
[1]: https://www.platinedispositif.net/
[2]: https://murasame.hatenablog.jp/entry/20251130/1764507793
Lost Planet 2 was delisted in 2021 because it can't be played without patching out Games for Windows Live.
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.
The older Metro games are of note, while they're available as the Redux versions there are a surprising number of non-graphical differences between the original THQ published versions and the graphical updates.
If you want to follow and get notice : https://steamcommunity.com/groups/RemGC
"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."
What does "delisted" mean in this context?
- 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?
First one
"I specifically checked to see if 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' was delisted.
While the game was upgraded to the 'Director's Cut,' the original version (without the Director's Cut content) is no longer available."
Jesus I thought it'd be obscure games but I randomly scrolled down and saw Duke Nukem games, a bunch of the F1 series, Jet Set Radio, Lumines, Mafia III, MultiVersus (don't care about this I just remember _so many_ people being paid to stream this, there was a lot of money behind it) and Wolfenstein (2009). I had no idea this was so prevalent
>Mafia III was delisted from Steam on May 19th, 2020 when it was replaced with Mafia III: Definitive Edition
>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.
When a game gets remastered it's still around, so what if the original version is delisted?
still sucks though
imagine removing the original lionking for the same reason
Fair enough
Seems to have delisted but not unlisted games (e.g. https://store.steampowered.com/app/302850/Team_Indie/ "At the request of the publisher, Team Indie is unlisted on the Steam store and will not appear in search.")
I just want Poker Night, and Poker Night 2 :(
Of those are at the Inventory; they’re good.
Transformers: Fall/War of Cybertron went away and never came back. I'm still waiting...
DiRT games hit hard
Transformers: War For Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, and (especially) Devastation.
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.
See also Stop Skeletons From Fighting's Delisted series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-ak-oNNRK_vBhwW22i0h73AR...
death stranding is in there
I remember that many games I had in my wishlist became "blank" or removed, and I was unable to know what games were those
It was superseded by the Director’s Cut edition. So you can buy DS but not the original launch edition
That’s actually a case with a lot of games on the list that got a remake, director’s cut, upgraded edition etc.
This site has a tag for games that get relisted, but it really needs one for games that got remastered as well. It's a bit misleading to say a game is gone when you can still buy the GOTY version.
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.
It's only misleading to say so if the edition that replaces it is not strictly worse in at least one axis: Botched remasters, full remakes, unrenewed licenses, ports from a worse version of the game instead of the original...
Now, if there's actually a better release of the same game, then sure it should be at least tagged clearly.
>I was unable to know what games were those
You can check by copying the url of the blank game and pasting it into SteamDB's search field.
interesting i bought bloodrayne a long time ago
if i delete it i lose the game right?
No, the games just disappear from the shop and can no longer be bought via Steam. When you are already own them, you keep them. Third party seller might sometimes also still sell remaining Steam Key inventory and thus offer a way to activate a delisted game on Steam.
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.
> Steam game updates are mandatory and you can't downgrade the game to a previous version either.
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".
> Steam game updates are mandatory and you can't downgrade the game to a previous version either.
You can usually download old versions from the CDN using tools like steamcmd. Developers can remove the old depots, but usually don't.
No these games still install and run via steam just fine.
The are delisted for purchase but still available to download from Steam’s CDN for the Steam client. I own 3 delisted Transformers games but was able to reinstall them recently.
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.
We should just setup a review portal at the Dept of State, Visa, MasterCard, maybe moms against drunk driving, a few others, and devs can sanity check their game idea before submitting to steam
It's missing The Stomping Land
[dead]
I love how they decided to sell a new Mortal Kombat arcade collection instead of removing GFWL and reinstating the older one. /s
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When you bought a game and it becomes unavailable, due to delisting, you care.
It shows a general problem we have with online license's for movies, series and games. You buy the product and at some point later in time you loose access because something changed outside of your control. This is different from VHS/CD/DVD/BluRays where I can use the product even years after purchasing, despite a company loosing the license or simply not existing anymore.
FWIW Delisting in this context is just removing it from the store for purchase. It doesn't remove it from your library, nor remove your ability to download it.
Your concerns for digital licenses are totally valid but his specific topic isn't that.
Interesting, I did not know that and assumed something far worse from the "delisting". Thanks for the clearification.
Why even leave this comment?
So you know there is an alternative.