Disney has recently removed many old games from Steam without warning, and SteamDB also shows that the status of these works suddenly changed to “retired”.：，，， Steam 。 For players, this sense of gap that can be seen but cannot be purchased will be more popular than a simple suspension of sales.
Most of the items removed from the shelves are licensed movies.
Many of the games removed in this wave are film and television adaptations of the old era, and frankly speaking, not everyone will want to play them back; but the article specifically named “Star Wars: Rebellion” which is a pity, because it is a rare large-scale real-time 4X strategy game that allows you to play as the Empire or the Rebels, manage the resources, intelligence, and military of the entire galaxy, and even use characters from the movies and the extended universe to appear as special units. Star Wars strategy games of this scale have rarely been truly replicated.
The removal list includes Bolt, Chicken Little, Disney G-Force, Disney-Pixar Brave: The Video Game, Disney Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure, Disney’s Treasure Planet: Battle of Procyon, Disney Tangled, Disney Universe, High School Musical 3, Outlaws + A Handful of Missions (Classic Edition, 1997), Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier (War for the Planet of the Apes/Star Wars: The Last Frontier), Star Wars: Rebellion (Star Wars: Rebellion/Star Wars: Rebellion), and Star Wars Dark Forces (Star Wars: Dark Forces/Star Wars: Dark Forces (Classic Edition, 1995)).
Some of these works have actually been remastered, but the original versions have still been directly removed.
Classic LucasArts FPSs from the 1990s such as “Star Wars Dark Forces” and “Outlaws” have actually had good remastered versions released in recent years. Logically speaking, remastered versions are a better way to get started, but it still feels uncomfortable to have the original versions removed from the shelves as well. Because what players want is not that you give me a replacement, but that you don’t directly erase the historical version.
Unplugging it without explaining it will only make people more distrustful of digital stores!
Is this wave of removals a licensing issue? Is it the technical support cost? Or do you simply don’t want to deal with these old products anymore? Players may still be able to find some titles on second-hand physical disks, but for those who want to obtain them officially on modern PCs, your options are simply removed. This is why every time there is a large-scale delisting incident, the discussion will eventually return to the same focus: game preservation in the digital age is really ridiculously fragile.