Valve even took down one of its own games.
I spoke to some developers of delisted games to find out more.
Some regularly-updated series remove older entries as a matter of course.
Youll see a lot of old editions ofFootball Manageron any index of delisted titles.
Many removals are for prosaic reasons: a re-release, new edition, remaster, or change of publisher.
But ageing code and connectivity issues arent just for large-scale online service games.
Co-developer Popcannibal would go on to release BAFTA-award-winningKind Words.
For some developers, the reasons for a games removal are more personal.
She removed all her games from Steam and wiped her name from the developer records of most of them.
But she wont be coming back to game development.
Her last game,4 Alice Magical Autistic Girls, cost 5K CAD to produce and was a financial loss.
Its the game that took the most time, energy, and money to produce.
I was really hoping it would have worked as a commercial game," she tells me.
Alconnever respondedto Lengles efforts to handle the licensing issue.
The Valve guys were great and friendly, says Lengle.
They tried to temporise a bit.
Like me, they were quite annoyed with this shutdown request coming from Alcon.
Alcon followed up by making copyright claims against all of Lengles devblog videos on YouTube.
Perhaps the most famous delisting of a game from Steam was that ofDevotionby Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games.
But against all odds, our team managed to re-release Devotion last yearon our own storefront.
As a result, we felt relieved, as if a heavy weight was lifted from our shoulders.
It was home to a successful crowdfunding campaign for Red Candles next game, souls-like metroidvaniaNine Sols.
Youll most often have success with withdrawn demos and promotional items, such as Platinums8-bit Bayonettaand SegasGolden Axed.
Like most areas of software preservation, deleted game collecting is a fascinating rabbit hole to delve into.
Collectors devote themselves to tracking down Steam keys for these rarities, which can be costly.
