👾 A 2-Weeks Notice for discontinued games 🙀

[☆ƧQυiяяєL♫]

I've noticed a few games on my wishlist are "at the request of the publisher, this game is no longer for sale" on their store page or the store page is entirely removed.

The Steam store has a "Upcoming New Releases" category of preplanned or pre-release (pre-purchase option) game(s).
I wouldn't mind a 2-weeks notice discontinued category, something like, "Discontinued games, get them before they're Gone!"

I missed EA's "Shift 2" pull during a midweek EA sale, had there been an announcement that EA was pulling this game off of Steam and during mid sale, I woulda nabbed it!

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

That would be up to the game devs/pubs. Valve encourages them to do so.

There are quite a few that even spring up the removal on Valve.

[$crim$]

i think this is a great idea
<3

[nullable]

There may be an argument that if they're pulling the game off Steam they maybe don't want more people to "nab it" on Steam. After all if removing the game was in any way a tactic to increase FOMO sales publishers would be exploiting that all the time.

[wuddih]

that would be likely breaching contracts with other license owners, especially the ones that are the reason a product gets removed from stores.

[Brian9824]

It's something that would be really hard to enforce. Dev's have the right to stop selling their items whenever they wish. Steam can't make them keep selling it if they don't want to.

Trying to force them to keep selling a game they wish to stop supporting alienates Steam's biggest customer - Developers.

[Count_Dandyman]

This was done the last time the Ducktales license was about to expire they gave a warning and a discount on all platforms to let people know to grab it while they could.

Of course that one ended up getting renewed so it rather obviously had a team behind it that still cared about getting the game out there rather than the much more common case where by the time expiration approaches it is already viewed as a worthless dead property that is only really valuable as a charitable dump of keys that will become unsellable in return for more attention for the things you can still sell.

[☆ƧQυiяяєL♫]

I'm assuming the pub/dev's are planning to pull their game(s) and are privy to the end-date when they decide not to renew or due to "conflicts of interest" and before a discontinuation date, they could do a "going out of business" sale, for planned pulled game(s)

Ofc, it would be optional on their part to give a 2-weeks notice for us wishlisted gamers.
I remember when I was wee lass on early 2k Steam, I was planning to purchase "Dirt 1" and it was pulled from the Steam Store the day I decided to get it and I remember visiting the store page a few days earlier and I was "Meh. I'll get tommorah" I saw no notice if some sort of licensure exp. date. and discontinuation date.
Just poof. Gone. 🙀😸

[Washell]

If a game is based on a major IP owned by someone else than the publisher, I find myself not keeping it on my wishlist for long, but buying it. Because they do tend to disappear. Advance warning would be nice.

[Satoru]

Note each situation is different and the publisher/developer may not want to do that for a variety of legal, financial, etc reasons

1) legal issues may not even be known to sales teams managing store literally up until the point they are told to pull the plug. In giant publishers, yes this is entirely common that such departments are entirely siloed off from eachother. Aka the team that manages the store, will simply get a letter saying "Pull this game now" from the lawyers and so they just do it.

2) A change of publishers may be happening. This functionally from steam's perspective means they have to take down the game and republish it due to how their back end works. in that case the removal is temporary and they dont want to undermine future sales by doing a firesale

Ultimately its up to the publisher/dev to decide what to do and when. Steam cannot force something they functionally have no control over and reallly don't need control over either

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Originally posted by red:

i think this is a great idea
<3

Me too.

[Crazy Tiger]

That would only work if it's known beforehand that a game gets removed. In any case that's up to the game developers/publishers since they know it might happen, while Valve/Steam don't know.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

That would only work if it's known beforehand that a game gets removed. In any case that's up to the game developers/publishers since they know it might happen, while Valve/Steam don't know.

Games getting pulled usually come as a result of legal issues or licensing deals. In which case up until the moment the dev/pubs themselves may not know. I mean there are alot of last minute negotiation break thruus and what not.

If the dev/pubs did the This game will be discontinued thing a when they suspect they might not be able to hold up the license, and then by some miracle they do, they could find themselves in legal hot water since they may have made sales based upon a flse piece of information.

They give the notice early and it tuurns out to be wrong, the dev/pubs have problems that can result in very costly fines.

On the other hand they announce it when it is a 100% certainty (ie when the clock runs out and they pull it) and there's no issue for them.

Where possible many do try to give some notice.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Steam, being the entity with the most clout in this case, could actually require that removal of the game require two weeks prior notice.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Steam, being the entity with the most clout in this case, could actually require that removal of the game require two weeks prior notice.

Clout? No. Steam has nio influence over the legal wranglings of other parties and ttheir licenses.
Again. As stated. the dev/pubs themselves may not even have that level of notice. If they preemptively announce removal and it doesn'ty happen thenm that's going to be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about how the dev/pub lied to boost sales and that could actually be a case of fraudulent advertising. and that carries hefty fines.. in multiple regions. Yeah.. No. Dev pubs aren't gonna put themselves on the hook for something like that and neither steam nor any other company is gonna force them to, that would make the liability shared.

When the devs have certainty in advancem, they in just about every case I've seen, do give notice, and will usually have some special sale or such on the item in question.

Which brings me to a question for the OP.
You had the games wishlisted but were you also following them?
Ratther important since Wishlisting just notifies you as to sales. FOllow, keeps tyou privy to any news announcements which is where you wiould see notice if any was given.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Originally posted by Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Steam, being the entity with the most clout in this case, could actually require that removal of the game require two weeks prior notice.

Clout? No. Steam has nio influence over the legal wranglings of other parties and ttheir licenses.

There's that contract that governs the terms under which the product may be sold.