If they don’t want me to buy them then why should I buy them now instead of borrowing them for free for unspecified amount of time from the Internet?
If by “grab”, you mean “pirate”. Don’t reward them for taking games away.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/ + https://batocera.org/ + yarr + a USB controller
Rewarding bad behavior only encourages more
I hope this doesn’t affect my folders full of every Sega game rom ever.
they are probably cooking something, maybe their own platform? who knows
Probably remasters or remakes. They don’t want to compete with themselves.
maybe, but for 60 games at once?
This generates “buzz” it’s free marketing
It’ll be in a compilation pack, I’d bet
Which is a bit ironic, considering all of these are in two compilation packs.
They’re probably going to have a new compilation pack that costs about the same price and has a few additional games…but they didn’t want to just sell DLC/standalone games for the Collections that already exist.
And actually, a lot of these games that are getting delisted can be purchased separately. And maybe even have ROMs that are easily extracted. So maybe they just want to lock things down into an all-or-nothing ROMs-hidden collection or 10.
Exactly, they announced earlier this year that they were working on reviving a bunch of licences, including Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and hinting at a longer list. We don’t know yet eactly how many titles that includes, and which of them will get remakes, remasters, or brand new games, but it was hinting brand new. Early dev footage was leaked at some point for Crazy Taxi and Shinobi.
They already did this with the classic Sonic games (Sonic Origins) and removed them from any new Steam copies of the Genesis/Mega Drive Classics collection. I doubt they’re working on all the games in their library, but it may be enough of them that they just decided to pull the whole collection rather than leave it so gutted out. Sucks, but yeah, that’s the way it goes. That said, Shining Force remaster please? That would be awesome.
I think I have a single Steam game from within which I can then run those games. How would I backup the delisted games?
I think if you own that you’re still able to download them afterwards
No, you need to install them as well. It’ll work as long as it’s installed, but after they’re delisted, I don’t think steam can even distribute them.
I know I have at least one game “grid: race driver” that was delisted from steam, at some point I must have uninstalled it, and now I can’t download it, it doesn’t even show up in my library. I’ve been trying like hell to find a way to play it, but even pirated versions are being difficult.
Edit: judging from comments and downvotes, apparently this is rare? But it does definitely happen, I’m not making this example up. And I don’t know how you could predict whether a game will just be unavailable for purchase or totally disappear…
Removing games from player inventory is very rare; I’ve only seen it happen when malware is uploaded to Steam as a game.
I have a few games that can’t be played anymore, like Super Bomberman R Online and The Crew. I still can download their files from Steam; but I can’t play them.
But now I’m curious too, what could’ve happened that got that game removed from the people who bought the game
I’m a bit curious too. My theory is that it may have come down to licensing and trademark issue. Since the game used actual car brands and their logos and such, they may have had some agreement over their usage and perhaps the period of that agreement ended. It’s worth noting that the game was available from several different stores, and it became unavailable everywhere as far as I know.
Even when that agreement expires (see blur as a race game example), the game typically isn’t removed from libraries.
As for your game I think archive.org has a copy listed ( https://archive.org/details/race-driver-grid_202112 ), it says it’s a GOG copy so it shouldn’t give any issues, does it give any? (Do not click the spam comments, check the download options and pick either zip or torrent)
It’s extremely rare for a delisted game to be removed from your library, and they only do it in cases where, for instance, the game would literally be unplayable because the server isn’t there anymore. Often times they won’t remove the game from your library in that situation either. Having the game in your library is, in fact, enough.
That’s the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Classics collection. I have it myself (bought several years ago). It’s just an official emulator/GUI wrapper (styled like a bedroom with a CRT) that comes with the games. If you have the collection you can find all the ROMs in the collection’s folder and play them with whatever emulator you want. If Steam ever threatens to take them away I strongly recommend backing that folder up somewhere.
Never bothered to look into what it contained, but using the ROM outside steam is a very interesting proposal, thanks!
Echo the Dolphin being purged is worth the loss of the other 59.