Delisting games on digital platforms

[Harrison]

We have seen this in the past. When companies like EA and Epic launched there own rival digital distribution game libraries they removed their games from Steam.

But they tended to only not add new releases, and let older existing titles stay.

However there is a new trend this year of delisting games completely. The owners of the IP removing all traces of a game from a store such as Steam. Or in the recent case of Marvel Avengers, all traces of the game everywhere.

I had played Avengers some time ago when it was included in the PS Plus Extra library, but never directly owned a copy, so I have lost access to that forever. Not that I was ever going to play it again, but that's not the point.

Now Warhammer 40K Space Wolf is due to be delisted on the 12th October. It was never the best Warhammer game, but it wasn't bad, and it had a lot of DLC expansions. I've posted elsewhere with details on grabbing the game and all dlc for 80p before it's too late.

What are your thoughts on delisting games?

Are you that bothered? For those of us who are game collectors and have worked to build a collection to preserve games on retro platforms it's not great. We are in danger of losing these games forever moving forward.

I alto don't get why they instantly delete the storefront page. Games on Steam have a lot of useful information linked within each game page. As well as videos and screenshots, you have reviews and the community pages with screenshots, guides, tips, walkthroughs etc. They wipe a game page out and you lose the lot. Not good

[Demon Cleaner]

I wanted to get some PS3 games for PC but they're not available anymore, so I just did what I always do, just download them from somewhere.

[J T]

I get that some things can't be supported for ever, and it's not feasible to keep with the expense of something that's not really being used much but it does seem a shame to delete the whole page and all that history.

[Harrison]

Exactly. Why delete the pages? All they need to do is show the games are no longer available to purchase. Gamers still want to be able to look up the information about the game, look at videos and screenshots, read reviews and access the community pages that often contain guides, walkthroughs and player discussions. I just don't get why you would just wipe that out.

It's one argument to support GOG.com more, especially as they have their own Steam like library client Galaxy. But you can't really get away from how central Steam is to PC gaming.