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.

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

+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?

You may appreciate the game Split/Second, its in a similar vein.

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.

This is the double edged sword of copyright, sometimes you want the artist to have control, sometimes you don't.

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'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 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...

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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'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.

First one

Of those are at the Inventory; they’re good.

>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.

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.

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.

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.

>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.

> 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.