It’s not as rare as you think, and in fact it’s causing a small stir in the gaming community, given that older games which have no other digital version available on the internet. While movies, books and music are considered to be worthy of archival for the future, since they are considered to be an art form, games aren’t seen in the same light, yet.

True, Steam isn’t the only digital platform for games, but it is the market leader for various reasons, which I won’t go into here. A removal from Steam indicates that it could be removed from other distributors as well, though not always.

I’m not going to give any names of specific games, developers, publishers in my examples, but those of us who follow the gaming news should be well aware of them, since these were hot topics when they happened.

Anyway, this is a near exhaustive list of potential reasons for a game to be removed from Steam.

License expiration

For big name companies, TV or movie franchises, or anything that has a trademark outside of the gaming world, they have an important brand to maintain. As such, they ‘lease out’ a license to produce a game based on their trademark. These licenses are never eternal, since they need to be either renewed by the developer/publisher, or they are strictly only for 5 years, or 10 years, it varies. Once that license expires, the rights to the continue distributing the game are withdrawn, thus the removal.

Annual versions/updates

This applies to a lot of major franchises, and generally for sports. Each year there are roster updates, new teams, players and so on. There will always be a few new features as well to encourage users to upgrade instead of staying with the current game. While they don’t immediately remove the the older version, they tend to keep the last 3-4 ‘years’ of games active, and then remove them one-by-one as the next year arrives. This is also common with software sold on Steam, especially for annual video/audio software which is updated frequently.

Technical issues at launch

Some games are released a little too early, and haven’t had enough bug testing during the beta on a variety of devices. These removals are generally temporary while the developer rushes to fix the problem. Again, this happens with larger, more popular, franchises, so there is a reputation to uphold in terms of quality. However, on rare occasions, the game might never return.

Literally unplayable

Aside from technical issues, some games could be far too old to play on modern systems. Others could require an old method of verifying the installation via DRM, and can’t reach the now non-existent verification servers. For multiplayer games MMORPGs, or live service games, the servers could also be shut down entirely, preventing anyone else from playing them since they don’t possess a single player or offline experience.

Bad reviews or reception from gamers

Sometimes, a well-hyped game can result in massive backlash from gamers when it fails to live up to their expectations. With this, the publisher and developer might remove the game to fix the apparent issues with the game. Yet, there is also the possibility of it never returning, since it has already received such bad reviews, and it might be better to accept a loss now. In most cases, the games provided a full refund to users who purchased them.

Developer or publisher went bust

Not as uncommon as you might imagine. Dozens of hours of development and marketing cost money, and if a game fails to break even, then it could spell the end of the company. Once this happens and they go bankrupt, they can’t earn any further income from future sales, so they are removed. For indie developers especially, since they are a small team (or just one person), maintaining their small company requires resources (annual taxes, contracts, etc) to stay in business in their home country, and it can be too much to continue. So, it’s a little more likely for smaller teams to remove their games, as there is no company to accept the payment any more.

Legal issues

As the previous section suggested, companies going bankrupt cause issues, but there are also professional disputes, such as who owns the copyright of a character, or the trademark of a name, or even a specific creator left a team wants to take their property with them. These legal battles can last a while, since owning the full rights to any item could result in profit. As such, games can be removed during this state of limbo, which could last years.

Banned from Steam

This used to be a rare example, but is now growing. A full ban from Steam itself could be for a single game, a developer, or an entire publisher. The reasons vary, but usually fall under three categories:

• Abuse of the Steam platform in some way
  • Creating fake reviews
  • Getting paid reviewers without them advising that they got the product for free
  • Amending prices constantly
  • False advertising
  • Using other major copyrights in images or names, leading to DMCA takedowns
  • Changing the release date randomly
  • And the list goes on…
• Game content is too dangerous/explicit/illegal
  • With the rise of porn/hentai games on Steam, there are chances for legal grey areas to appear for CSE, extreme gore, and such in anime images, 3D models, or even live action (FMV) games. Depending on how Steam moderates the games, it could remove games shortly after their launch.
  • This category also includes games or software that contain harmful files for your machine, such as a bitcoin miner, keylogger, or even a plain old virus.
• Direct threats to Steam, Valve, its employees or the public
  • Some developers have made death threats to senior members of Valve Software, and others have posted hate messages on their Steam game page, and even on the patch notes for their game.
  • These are taken seriously by Steam mods, and if the warnings are ignored, they would take action to ban the game, or even the entire developer or publisher depending on how serious the issue was.

Scalpers

While it takes some time to make a game, there are free assets from various game engines, like 3D models, landscapes, and so on. It is possible to create good games from these assets or engines, others just create random games for no reason, commonly referred to as shovelware or asset flips since there is no thought or plotline involved. Additionally, since collecting games on Steam is a known phenomena, they post an update stating that they will be removing the game from purchase, and perhaps offering a discount. The collectors would rush to buy the game, and the devs may or may not remove them, having made some returns on this.

Exclusivity rights

Back in the bad old days of the console wars, certain games could only appear on certain platforms, and in fact did return with the newer generation of consoles. On PC, this was more-or-less non-existent until several years ago when different storefronts appeared, and offered their own published games there, or bought out the rights to sell a game for a year, before allowing it to be released on Steam. In some cases, games were pulled from Steam, even those with preorders, to prevent purchases from there, only to be purchased from another storefront.

Region-specific games

As the title suggests, some games are only available to purchase, or to be played, when located in a specific geographical location according to your billing address or IP. While these games aren’t removed per se, it can be nearly impossible to get them without being in those regions, and owning a copy of them can be seen to be a win for the collector.

Accidents happen

This is usually a genuine mistake by the developer or publisher. Somehow, a game was removed without prior notice or warning. In most cases, this is due to a pricing issue, where a game was listed below the lowest price available on Steam, leading it to be considered ‘removed’. These are generally rectified within the week.

Pulled by the publisher

Game developers create games, they don’t necessarily deal with all the marketing and publicity, so they let publishers handle that job for them, and is some cases hand away their rights to the game. As these publishers have full reign over the game, they can change pricing, and remove them from sale entirely. Literally, all of the previously stated reasons above could also be due to the publisher, even against the developers will.