Why Did Prey Stop Being Sold?

[Pocahawtness]

A question I have asked so many times over the the years and never heard a decent answer.

To my mind Prey is an underrated classic and could still sell a fair old number of copies. Maybe I am alone in thinking that :/#

Thank heaven I was lucky enough to get a copy before it disappeared.

[tyl0413]

They ran out of keys on a sale in 2009
https://kotaku.com/steam-sold-out-of-prey-please-try-again-later-5436298

[Ikagura]

Originally posted by tyl0413:

They ran out of keys on a sale in 2009
https://kotaku.com/steam-sold-out-of-prey-please-try-again-later-5436298

It's wierd, I thought that digitalised game were made to compensate the CD production cost...

[tyl0413]

Originally posted by Ikagura:

Originally posted by tyl0413:

They ran out of keys on a sale in 2009
https://kotaku.com/steam-sold-out-of-prey-please-try-again-later-5436298

It's wierd, I thought that digitalised game were made to compensate the CD production cost...

This game is using some old system that requires CD keys, that's why retail/steam copy keys work with each other, most modern games don't do this but yeah even steam versions gets a cd key, you can probably find it in the registry

[[TGSA] oujisan2236]

ran out of keys

its probably a licence thing too with Bethesda owning the studio and buying the IP's

[Reginald CZ]

I think that the reason was some weird online publishing system used for distribution of the game´s keys. And nobody cared to replenish the keys after the game ran out of it, but there was agreement made that if you own any CD-key to the game, you can activate it on Steam. Even retail copies (I activated one which I bought on sale in Tesco).

And when Bethesda got the franchise, they decided to kill original games later as a part of their revenge, so that may be reason too. But there probably is some agreement which blocks the game from being sold. As publisher of the first game was 2K I think.

[Butane]

Because you can't legitimately buy it anywhere now, it's technically abandonware/free: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/prey-dd1

[tyl0413]

Originally posted by Butane:

Because you can't legitimately buy it anywhere now, it's technically abandonware/free: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/prey-dd1

I downloaded that and it asks for a key

[xdshot]

Originally posted by Butane:

Because you can't legitimately buy it anywhere now, it's technically abandonware/free: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/prey-dd1

Wrong. I've recently purchased the key.

[Bluebeak]

It's not a "they ran out of keys" thing. That's the excuse they came up with. The real issue that has caused Prey 2006 to not be sold anymore is entirely to do with music licensing. The game has a lot of licensed music, mostly all played in the bar at the start of the game, that is expensive to re-license 10 years later. It would be trivial to crack the CD key check the game has and just say "multiplayer is disabled this is singleplayer only". Like they did with a ton of games. (Quake 4 comes to mind.)

[Ikagura]

It kinda sucks that some games are in some "copyright hell"

[tyl0413]

Originally posted by Ikagura:

It kinda sucks that some games are in some "copyright hell"

It really does

[Lyoko_Lombax]

Originally posted by Bluebeak:

It's not a "they ran out of keys" thing. That's the excuse they came up with. The real issue that has caused Prey 2006 to not be sold anymore is entirely to do with music licensing. The game has a lot of licensed music, mostly all played in the bar at the start of the game, that is expensive to re-license 10 years later. It would be trivial to crack the CD key check the game has and just say "multiplayer is disabled this is singleplayer only". Like they did with a ton of games. (Quake 4 comes to mind.)

I doubt that's the case. The game is still sold on Xbox Live.

[tyl0413]

Originally posted by KennyClank:

Originally posted by Bluebeak:

It's not a "they ran out of keys" thing. That's the excuse they came up with. The real issue that has caused Prey 2006 to not be sold anymore is entirely to do with music licensing. The game has a lot of licensed music, mostly all played in the bar at the start of the game, that is expensive to re-license 10 years later. It would be trivial to crack the CD key check the game has and just say "multiplayer is disabled this is singleplayer only". Like they did with a ton of games. (Quake 4 comes to mind.)

I doubt that's the case. The game is still sold on Xbox Live.

Yeah, Mac App Store too so they did actually run out of Steam copies

[Cyberaapje]

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/3970/capsule_184x69.jpg xD

[Ikagura]

Originally posted by Cyberaapje:

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/3970/capsule_184x69.jpg xD

The idea of a digital game being "sold out" is simply ridiculous