Delisted Games is here to chronicle the games you can’t play. When were they released, when did they disappear, where else can you still get them (legally), and what the heck happened? We try to provide the dates, data, and details to answer all those questions for each of the 1,839 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.
Delisted Games started (and continues) as a series of YouTube videos that presents delisted games in an archival format. After receiving tons of comments on these videos asking why the games were removed and how to get them back I decided to start this site. That was June 2016 and since then the site has more than quadrupled in content, features, and viewership year after year.
So who’s behind this thing?
Largely, it’s 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. Outside of the news posts here on the site I try to keep things as factual and straight-forward as possible, relying on dates, data, and lots of links to tell the story of these delisted games.
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 They’ve been an immense help circling back to old, outdated posts and filling in placeholder pages that have lingered for far too long.
While we are the few 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.
We’ve also got accounts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch if you’d like to follow along there. I admit though, managing social media has always taken a backseat to adding posts and pages to the site.
If you’re feeling especially philanthropic you can also donate to our efforts on Patreon and ko-fi, or simply consider turning off your ad blocker for the site.
Full disclosure: Ads & Affiliate Links
Speaking of ad blockers, I’ve tried to keep the ads to a minimum, refusing to implement the more profitable but highly annoying full-page takeovers, pop-over 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 cover out of our personal income.
For games that you can still buy I try to link 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.
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.
You can read more about the site’s design, advertising, and data collection on the Privacy Policy page.