Codemasters needs to be serious about video game preservation.

[CN21]

Hello, first of all I don't know if this is the right place to discuss about this following issue or not but I will still go ahead as it involves the DiRT franchise along with other Codies games. If there is a better place for me to talk about this please let me know.

I hope you have heard about video game preservation and how it is important to keep older games in a state where people can still purchase them and play them. Where as some other publishers are quite serious about this, I do not think Codemasters is at the moment, Look at the DiRT franchise. It is shameful that there are more DiRT games not available on steam for purchase than there are. DiRT 2, DiRT 3 were some of the best in the series where it was a nice blend of arcade and serious rally racing. Today they are not available along with Showdown and the very first DiRT game. Only the last three are on steam.

Same goes for the GRID franchise. A couple of days back Grid 2 was removed from steam so now only Autosport remains. The OG Grid was removed quite a while ago and now the sequel as well. It is only a matter of time before Autosport is removed once the new GRID releases.

Funnily enought for the F1 franchise, you have access to the older games all the way to F1 2011. This is the franchise where it makes most sense to remove older games as people will always like to play the latest season of F1 and yet games till F1 2011 are available for purchase.

My question is why is Codemasters doing this? If they are going to remove some of their best creations, blocking access to players who do not own, then a time will come where nobody will remember DiRT 3 or the Race Driver: Grid. They have been doing this for years. If they think that nobody is playing multiplayer in their games and they want to shut down the servers then go ahead, do it, but keep the game alive, at least people can play the career mode. They didn't even do a sale or some sort for GRID 2. They just removed it. A week long sale for a dollar or two would have allowed some folks to pick it up. Look at Alan Wake. Due to some song license expiration they had to remove the game from steam but did it after a week long sale for 1$ and guess what couple of years later, the game is back on steam.

There are games from the 90s that are available on steam and yet this is what Codeis is doing. I don't know how many of you know but Codeis used to make some amazing Cricket games before, very few know about them. Why? Cause they are not for sale anywhere. Unless they are planing on remasters i don't see why they would do this. They do not even explain. they need to show more love to their older games otherwise their franchises will be soon forgotten.

Please let me know what you think!

[Cwot]

Licensing issues because of cars and music i guess. I'm not sure why they are still selling those old F1 games though.

[CarDr]

Licensing contracts have expired and they are not allowed to make any new copies or generate any new steam keys.

Any copy of real life items should be protected under trade mark and copyright laws and require a license contract/ lease agreement from the owners to use them in the game. This includes cars, race tracks, race teams - driver names and their paint schemes/ sponsors, and music/songs. There might be hundreds of contracts required in a racing title, and there is no set pricing on what the owners can ask for – you might be able to buy 1 new car for less than the contract would cost, especially when you add in your attorney fees to draw up and close that contract.

These contracts should include a sunset clause/ end of use date. Game stores/ key warehouses can continue to sell the inventory they have prepaid for after that date, but they cannot reorder any more from the publisher. The Steam store does not prepay for the keys they sell. Average life of these contracts in racing titles is around 5-7 years. EA had an exclusive license with Porsche that lasted 10 years.

A studio/ dev team may have a license for a race series like Nascar, F1, WRC that should include all of the official tracks, but race teams, drivers, paint schemes might require additional license contracts.

[CN21]

Ok I get it. Damn, that means these games are going to be rarer than hen's teeth moving forward.

[Aliendik]

I'd like to see the old CM racing games, in the future, as a HD remastered form. Maybe this could be done.

[Aliendik]

like colin mcrae, once, 3rd? vers. i guess

[Hoksu]

Originally posted by Cwot:

Licensing issues because of cars and music i guess. I'm not sure why they are still selling those old F1 games though.

True. But then, you need to ask why expiring licenses affect CM in particular. You don't see a whole lot of non-CM racing games being removed because of expiring car licenses, do you?

As for licensed music, it's not necessary in a racing game at all so they could just save the trouble and not have any. Have to say though, limited time music licenses in games are an astonishingly dumb thing. Why video games cannot have licenses that last indefinitely like films and TV shows have, I cannot begin to understand. "Hurr durr let's patch to remove music from GTA IV that was released 10 years ago, so logical"

[Axe]

What you think should be the case, isn't and no matter how much speculation is made the facts are the facts...

[mattshep69]

I think PC games don't earn as much profit as console games. The console manufacturers keep their market fluid by making old versions of their games, unplayable on the newer consoles. Now most games are brought as downloads and nearly all games have some element of DRM . Developers have a game kill switch they can use at any time. They want to starve the market of games for under £5, to encourage people to pay £60 instead.

[:partyhat:]

'economic factors'

Rip socom confrontation, et al
servers will go down for online only games


On the bright side custom championships are a thing