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Already Delisted, TRON: Evolution becomes unplayable thanks to expired DRM
Already Delisted, TRON: Evolution becomes unplayable thanks to expired DRM

TRON: Evolution was originally delisted from Steam back in April of this year, but beginning in early October players who owned the game found that it was now unplayable if it wasn’t previously installed. After doing some digging, Steam user SillyWalk discovered that the culprit was the SecuROM DRM that Disney used to stave off piracy of the PC game since its release in 2010.

The support staff at SecuROM confirmed that “we can’t run this service anymore for Disney titles, therefore all activations are denied”. By this point other owners had also reached out to Disney about the issue, several of which received the same email explanation:

Our team is aware that the activation site for this game is no longer live and has since been shut down. At this time, if the game was not already previously installed it will no longer be able to be launched. We are looking into this hiccup and hoping to patch this in the future. However, at this time we do not have any current estimated time on when this will be.

So Disney stopped paying the maintenance fee for DRM and now their already-delisted game is even more unplayable. I’d label it as outright Unbelievable but now that it’s happened, I’m only surprised that I didn’t think of it as a delisting factor sooner. Studios incur an untold amount of fees to keep their games online, even after they’ve been removed from sale, and unfortunately, ‘DRM provider’ is just another one we are now painfully aware of.

Thanks again to The Everyday Otacon for pointing out this news.

GWENT: The Witcher Card Game abandons Consoles in June of 2020
GWENT: The Witcher Card Game abandons Consoles in June of 2020

CD Projekt Red, makers of the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 and the well-loved Witcher franchise, have announced a surprising end-of-life for the series spin-off title, GWENT. The news was posted on December 4th that the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of GWENT: The Witcher Card Game would become unplayable on June 9th, 2020.

Leading up to that date, players will have a six month window starting on December 9th in which to transfer most of their console progress over to a GOG.com account which serves as the backend for the PC and mobile versions of the game. The official post has more details on what progress will and won’t be copied over, and promises that more details about the process will be revealed on December 9th.

So, why is this being announced just one year after the game’s console release? The team promised to keep parity between all versions of the game but with five titles to maintain, the underperforming platforms are being cut loose. The announcement explains:

When we launched the console versions of GWENT back in 2017, our intention was to provide console players with the same level of support as their PC counterparts. However, having just launched GWENT on iOS, and with the Android version coming, the number of supported platforms would significantly increase. Looking to the future, we do not believe we can support a growing number of different versions of GWENT while improving feature parity between them.

Considering that PC and mobile are the most popular platforms among GWENT players, we have made a tough decision: to discontinue support of console versions of the game. All GWENT players on consoles will be offered an option to copy their account progress and purchases from their current platform to a GOG account, which is used by both PC and mobile versions of the game.

I’ll add the dates to the Watch List calendar and keep an eye out for more details between December 9th and the game’s end-of-the-road next June. Thanks to Michael Hunin and everyone else who pointed us toward this news.

Section 8
Digital Release:Steam
September 01, 2009

PlayStation 3
March 26, 2010 (US)
April 15, 2010 (AU, EU)

Xbox 360
January 31, 2012 (EU, US)
Delisting:November 26, 2013 - Steam
Late 2013 - PlayStation 3 (US)
Late 2013 - Xbox 360 (AU, EU, US)
Developer:TimeGate Studios
Publisher:SouthPeak Games (Steam, PlayStation 3 [US], Xbox 360)
TimeGate Studios (PlayStation 3 [AU, EU])
Available On:Digital:
Steam download code
PlayStation 3 (AU, EU)

Retail:
PC
Xbox 360
Links:Section 8 homepage [Archive]
Xbox.com page [Archive]
PlayStation.com page
SteamDB page