Delisted Games is here to chronicle the games you can’t play and try to answer the major questions:
- When was it released?
- When did is disappear?
- Where else can I still get it (legally)?
- And what the heck happened?
We try to provide the dates, data, and details to answer all those questions for each of the 2,032 entries on the site. However, thanks to contracts and non-disclosure agreements, the details behind the delistings are hard to confirm, but we’re doing our best to substantiate what we can.
How it Started…
Delisted Games started as a series of YouTube videos (on my old personal channel that’s since been deleted) that presented delisted games in an archival format. After receiving tons of comments on those videos asking why the games were removed and how to get them back I decided to start this site. That was June of 2016 and since then the site has more than quadrupled in content, features, and readership.
How it’s Going.
Personally, not well. After seven years of investigating publishers, contracts, and the ever-evolving game design scene, I find myself at odds with the modern games industry. No longer driven by a passion for the games themselves, I found this work too overwhelming and depressing to continue on my own. You can read more about my decision in my “farewell” post here.
But thankfully the community was there and the site will continue on in 2023 with new game pages and news posts! Long-time commentors and contributors — HandMaskTar and n64ra — have both joined the site to keep adding new content. And honestly, I’m still here behind the scenes to keep the site’s backend humming along.
So who’s behind this thing?
Speaking of behind the scenes, from 2016 until 2022 it was largely just me: Shawn Sackenheim. I’ve been writing, talking, and posting about video games on the internet since the mid-90’s on various sites, including my own.
In January of 2022 frequent tipster, HandMaskTar, joined the site and made this an actual team affair. In their own words, they “came to fix the site’s older pages, stayed to keep the site going”. They’ve been an immense help circling back to old, outdated posts and filling in placeholder pages that have lingered for far too long.
Another frequent tipster, n64ra, joined the site as well and will be focusing on news posts about upcoming delistings and shutdowns.While we are the ones that put digital pen to virtual paper and make the site, the community has helped a ton. Since our launch, hundreds of delisted games have been submitted to the site by readers and visitors.
Full disclosure: Ads & Affiliate Links
I’ve tried to keep the ads to a minimum, refusing to implement the more profitable but highly annoying full-page takeovers, pop-up nag screens, and auto-running videos that personally push me away from visiting a site. Whether you click or not, the pennies do add up and the proceeds help offset the hosting and domain costs which we otherwise cover out of pocket.
For games that you can still buy you may find links on the site to Amazon, GOG.com, and Play-Asia who offer affiliate programs. If you buy a game through these links, we get a little cut of the sale price which also goes to keeping the site up and running.
Why WordPress?
I’m more of a tinkerer than a coder. Rather than spend years learning to hand craft a database I chose to get started as soon as possible with a platform I’m familiar with, and that’s WordPress. Thanks to a handful of plugins and my understanding of CSS, PHP, and javascript I’ve built and refreshed the site a number of times since 2016. It makes for a more manual process when adding games to the site but it was important for me to get started as soon as possible, a decision I might regret nowadays with nearly 2,000 pages on the site.
You can read more about the site’s design, advertising, and data collection on the Privacy Policy page.