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/

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captn3m0 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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

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reddalo 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

+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?

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embedding-shape 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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olyjohn 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

	▲	reddalo 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, I think it's super funny to race with a Ford Transit in Blur!

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skotobaza 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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godzillabrennus 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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wilg 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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wavemode 6 hours ago | parent [-]

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?)

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lenkite an hour ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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TylerE 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The engineers at the car company that designed the body in the first place are also artists.

	▲	wat10000 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They have as much control over this as I do, i.e. none at all.

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CasperH2O 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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dom96 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

	▲	reddalo 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think you can install games that you bought (when they were available), even if they're delisted.
	▲	dark-star 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		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