Welcome to Delisted Games, a growing archive of 798 games you can’t play.
The site is expanding all the time with new additions, reader submissions, and a feed of Watch List news below. You can use the search bar to find any game — It’s powerful! Read some hints — or use the menus at top to browse our collection by platform. Thanks for checking out the site!
When I first launched the site I wasn’t thinking about how to handle a game in the seemingly off-chance coincidence that it ever came back. Fortunately, developers are sometimes able to take over as the publisher of their own games or are able to renegotiate new licensing deals resulting in their delisted titles being re-listed.
Until now I’ve been updating each game’s title to include the text “RELISTED” (which you can always search for) but thanks to a request from @Bogdan9652 on Twitter there is now an official Relisted Games page on the site. I’m usually so heads-down on research that I didn’t think to make the page myself, so thanks to Bogdan for the great suggestion.
You can find the new page here or simply look under the Games menu at the top of the site. Like most other pages, you can view the full list or select your desired platform to narrow it down. One quick FYI: we are not accepting submissions for games that have ever been relisted. I’d love to offer a complete history of every game as it has come and gone but for now I’m only fielding those games that are currently delisted or are going away soon.
Following up after the surprising news that their titles from publisher Focus Home Interactive were being removed from console and PC storefronts, Frogwares has issued official confirmation of the delistings. The studio posted a press release on October 4th to confirm that 9 out of their 10 store listings had been removed.
“The outcome is pretty bleak,” states Wael Amr, CEO of Frogwares, “and we are now fighting an uphill battle, trying to resubmit our games back on their stores where possible. As we previously said, the process is going to take several months, but there’s hope and we will continue to push on.”
That 10th title is Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments which Frogwares was able to regain control of, keeping it available on Steam, and quickly releasing it on GOG.com. As an added bonus, Frogwares has put many of their titles on sale on GOG.com through October 11th and those who buy Crimes & Punishments will also get a free copy of their 2010 title, Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of The Baskervilles. What’s more, Frogwares has prepared a free memorial artbook to commemorate their long history with Sherlock Holmes and for fans to enjoy while they continue working to bring their games back to storefronts.
“We are forever grateful for the sheer amount of public and industry-wide support we got, and we truly appreciate everyone who added their voice to the issue, Amr continues in the press release. “To show our gratitude we put together a digital booklet for Sherlock Holmes games and have released it for free to everyone. A big thank you to all the community that did actually reach out to us to try help once we brought this to light.”
While PC players still have plenty of Frogwares titles to choose from, the landscape is now completely barren on consoles. When we last posted, only a couple of titles remained on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 but now they’ve all disappeared. A few are still available on physical media however.
I’ll begin working on adding the titles to the site and hope that a relisting comes sooner than later.
If you’re following the site on Twitter you might have caught this last week but I haven’t had any time at all to get a post up on the site until now. Last week I was a guest on the Fragments of Silicon podcast to talk about DelistedGames.com and the tragic side effects of our current digital-only landscape.It’s the first opportunity I’ve had to speak aloud about the site and it was a good discussion with the hosts. Check it out above and also check out Fragments of Silicon on Twitter or Twitch.
In the wake of the unfortunate news regarding publisher Nicalis and Ittle Dew 2 developer Ludosity, news broke on September 26th of another similar situation between a different pair of studios. Longtime Sherlock Holmes developer, Frogwares, posted a letter to Twitter explaining that their publishing partner at Focus Home Interactive had enacted a new policy regarding all of its associated titles.
Despite not being a clause in any of Frogwares past or current contracts, the new stipulation gives Focus Home the right to remove any games not in their current “catalog” from digital storefronts without first transferring these titles back to the developer or IP holder. What that means for Frogwares is that a major revenue stream for the studio has suddenly been cut off and they now have to scramble to attempt to get their titles back on sale.
As Frogwares explains in the full statement that can be found at the end of this post, “we are losing all revenue attached to these games, some an unknown period of time and for other games, forever. This new policy from Focus Home towards former contracted developers will land a serious blow to our studio, threatening our future games and the people who develop them.”
Focus Home has not made any public statement on the situation but Frogwares was quick to lay out their strategy for returning access to their delisted titles, saying that “we are in the process of setting up new store profiles, and we are contacting console stores and hope to try and rectify the situation. However, we are unable to confirm if this can be done and already know that it will be impossible for certain games on previous gen, and very costly for others.”
I don’t know when I’ll be able to get the affected titles on the site so for now here is a list of what is and isn’t available based on Frogwares’ statement. Unfortunately, Crimes & Punishments is also up in the air and Frogwares warns that it may be removed on September 29th. You can read that full and lengthy statement further below.
Sherlock Holmes Crimes & Punishments (Available: Steam, Xbox 360)
The Testmanet of Sherlock Holmes (Available: Steam)
Magrunner: Dark Pulse (Available: Steam, PlayStation 3)
Sherlock Holmes versus Jack The Ripper (Available: Steam)
View all of Frogwares titles available on Steam here.
Not My Car, one of the few vehicular spins on the Battle Royale genre that launched back in early April, is shutting down at the end of September. Team member Turbo Racington posted to the game’s Steam page on Friday to announce the sad news:
We hoped this day would never come, but here we are. After 2 1/2 years of long nights and weekends trying to get notmycar off the ground, we have decided to shut down the servers as of midnight on 9/30. It was a difficult decision, but one that we feel is right for us at this time. We had big plans for the game, including taking it to console and adding new game modes, but unfortunately we weren’t able to secure the investment to do so. FYI, making games is hard, and making money making games is even harder.
We are greatly appreciative of all of the support and love we’ve received from the community since the game launched – especially those of you who were with us from the very beginning. To the Content Crew and Auto Club – thanks for your additional support taking screenshots, capturing video, and in general helping us test and tune the game.
We had loads of fun working with you. To those of you who showed up to our playdates, even when they were scheduled at the last minute and weren’t super friendly to EU timezones – THANK YOU!! It was a pleasure dropping into battle with you.
And extra special thanks to Greenskull and Potts for organizing the community, working with marketing, handling our social accounts, and in generally helping to evangelize the game – your contribution was invaluable – our community would not have existed without you. In addition to our players, we’d like to thank our partners at Skybound, Valve, Alienware, Razer, and Twitch for supporting us these last 2 years. And last but not least, thanks to our awesome art outsourcing partner, ArtBully, for helping us with this project. You guys are the best.
So, with this being the final weekend, we’d like to invite all of you to one last playdate with the developers before we close up shop. We’ll be on from 4-6pm Friday, 9/27, and then intermittently throughout the weekend. Look for us in our black and gold developer buggies, and join us in discord!
As an added bonus, we’re lowering all of the prices in the store to FREE! We will also be offering refunds to anyone who purchased an item since the start of Season 2 – please message me directly and we’ll get you taken care of.
Well, that’s it then. We hope you enjoyed your time playing notmycar – see you on the battlefield!
Anybody looking to give the game a shot can still grab it (and all of its in-game content) for free until Monday, September 30th. I’ll have a page up on the site for Not My Car – Battle Royale soon.
Thanks to friend of the site (and actual friend!) @CazzPhoenix for pointing this one out.
