Delisting - Dark trends

[ParasiteSteve]

Today's racing games as a whole are very guilty of delistings, because either car makers are stingy in terms of how long a car can be licensed, or the developers chose to get shorter car licensing deals to save money. The older Forza games (i.e. Forza Horizon 3 and Forza Motorsport 7) were delisted after 4 years, and even though Forza Horizon 4 got longer licensing deals, it will be delisted this month, 6 years after it's release.

And while the Forza games are still playable post-delisting, other racing games that get delisted have reduced functionality, and we saw in the biggest extreme that The Crew 1 was shut down and is no longer playable. I don't know what the current progress is about the 3rd party-server/offline modding attempts for that game. Gran Turismo 5 was mostly playable after its server shut down, but Gran Turismo 6 had more features removed after its server shutdown, and Gran Turismo Sport has numerous features that are no longer available after its server shut down, i.e. the mileage store (so the exclusive cars from it are no longer obtainable), and you can't even change your car's color and wheels anymore, because it was tied to the livery editor feature that is no longer available, and you can no longer use any save liveries you had beforehand.

I think sports games in general as they license from the real world are always going to be subject to shutting down on some level. I have Forza 4 so will be interesting to see what gets taken away once its delisted. AC still stands strong as its all mods, so that stuff is eternal (although I know a laser scan of a track got some shit, not sure what happened with that. It was a stock car track and I am not familiar with them other than Watkins Glen as its an awesome track).

As you touched upon, yeah, music is a fucking nightmare. You can see how shitty licensing issues are with stuff like spotify, where different regions end up with missing albums as buyout after buyout renders rights in the air at times. Strange that we are firmly in the era where games can actually die and no longer be playable at all. I play a lot of emulator games, psx shit, and other than the emulator debate being something I do not care about, I can still fire up Dave Mirra BMX, with soundtrack and play it like I did when it first game out. But now, so many games from the last decade or so are just gone forever. You have to watch a youtube video to see them, but you cannot play them.

 

[Thiletonomics]

I think sports games in general as they license from the real world are always going to be subject to shutting down on some level.

The WWE 2K games are the worst in terms of delisting, as the servers for the game are used to share custom-made wrestlers, to play online with other players, and to play MyFaction. (which is the same pay-2-win garbage like EA Sports's Ultimate Team and NBA 2K's MyTeam) The servers are shut off after only 2 years, with one notable exception being WWE 2K19's servers (WWE games used to release in Fall of the previous number year, so 2K19 was released in 2018, but was changed to March releases in the same number year, so 2K22 and later games release in March of the same number year) running until 2022 after the WWE 2K20 disaster, 2K21 being cancelled because of it and COVID, so 2K22 was the next game.

They have also started to delist older WWE games as well, to prevent people from just buying the older games so they don't have to pay out royalties to the wrestlers in the older games, and also because the controversies of some wrestlers that removed them from newer games, i.e. Mandy Rose being removed from WWE 2K23 since she got fired before the game released, (even though parts of her game data are still in the game) and Brock Lesnar and Vince McMahon being no longer playable in WWE 2K24 (IIRC, Brock was only playable in the Wrestlemania Showcase mode, and he was removed from advertising of the game) because of their legal troubles.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

There is genuinely zero reason (besides licensing where its even still relevant) for Nintendo to not have every single game pre-N64 or even pre-Gamecube available on their store. They are fucking roms that are widely available that run just fine on damn near any modern device, and you can't convince me Nintendo of all companies doesn't have the means to get near flawless emulators working on their hardware.

When it comes to Nintendrones, Nintendo could release a 1 time pass costing $100 for access to every game on a particular system, AND charge this for each system, and they would fucking print money for it. Nintendo is living proof that you can be a pack of honest to God mongoloid retards of the highest caliber and SOMEHOW still be massively successful in Clown World.

I kinda get GC, they're modern enough that remasters could be standalone titles, like with Metroid Prime and Wind Waker, but they're not remastering pre-GC games (maybe occasionally on DS/3DS, but none since). Every game they have the publishing rights to should be available day 1, then they can work on securing the rights to other games. We have a sad, pathetic selection of games, and even some systems are still missing like DS/3DS, although 3DS emulation might be too much for Switch and also might be candidates for remasters too.

 

[skykiii]

but I don't know if zoomers are even aware of what Home of the Underdogs was (in its original, uncucked form).

What happened to Home of the Underdogs? I used to frequent that site a lot before they were forced to remove all actual downloads. Is that the cuckening you mean or did something worse happen?

 

[Xarpho's Return]

When they were just dumping shit in dosbox I might have agreed with you, but since the old days they have taken a stand on getting games running on newer hardware.
Like yeah, you can track down a bunch of user fixes if you like, but they try to package the game so it "just works".

Even the PC stuff they use pre-existing patches (including official ones). I don't think they've stolen any fan mods but there are a few GOG games that come out a bit...less than stellar when releasing them, and that's also because Microsoft hasn't done anything like kill 32-bit software yet. I guess the GOG releases are more reliable than pirate releases and usually come complete, but still...

What happened to Home of the Underdogs? I used to frequent that site a lot before they were forced to remove all actual downloads. Is that the cuckening you mean or did something worse happen?

I can't remember the details. I believe it was 2009 when they first shut down and gave raise to at least two splinter sites both claiming the HOTU name and the new Macintosh Garden.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

I was lucky to get The Suffering from GOG after it was announced that it was delisted from their site. If anything, I might do the same thing for Warcraft just out of principle.

 

[Xenomorphs Are Cute]

View attachment 6717999
BRING IT BACK

Here, also here's WFC & FoC games. They're optimized to be plug & play by an Abandonware archivist I follow (I downloaded a lot of games from him), just run them as administrator.

These are 1fichier links btw, & 1fichier sucks dick so some unreliable methods include either using 1fichier downloader if it works for you (it's broken for me, may work for you, it's also a dropped project), or the jdownloader 2 way of just go to it's Settings -> Reconnect (don't know if it still works. There's another method, but IDK if it works anymore), but basically but you can (possibly) reset the wait timer by disabling & re-enabling your Wi-Fi via:
> Settings
> Network & Internet
> Advanced network settings.

You can also do it through:
> Control Panel
> Network and Internet
> Network and Sharing Center.

View attachment 6723269View attachment 6723270
Relist them you cowards!

I have posted about Wolfenstein 2009 here with links & stuff (it's sadly not plug & play yet, but the archivist is at it), but Quake Wars is just lost media sadly.

 

[ZipDisk]

I remember playing a pirated Quake Wars, how did it become lost media?

 

[Xenomorphs Are Cute]

I remember playing a pirated Quake Wars, how did it become lost media?

From what I remember correctly, the servers are just really fucked, it's still workable tho.

 

[ZipDisk]

Yeah, I went looking and unfortunately the most active community only do two days a week, and they use pedocord to coordinate.
Looking back I don't think I ever played it legit. I played it like 1942 with bots, and that was enough.

 

[Scarthew]

Kinda funny how the keys are listed on third-party sites at +$1000. I had Devastation too but refunded it cause I imagined it was another cheap Platinum game, even at the time realizing the combos were innovative and it was condensed and arcade in nature.

Never looked at the Cybertron games but look kino as shit

Of the 3 liscensed titles they did with activision (devastation, korra, tmnt) devastation is the only one really worth a damn. 5 characters with different properties a ton of different weapons, and it has pretty much every mechanic from their other games all mashed in there whether they make others obsolete or not. My only main issue is the weapon upgrading system because its a bit tedious and ultimately creates inconsistent difficulty. There's some other quirks but if you're into the genre or platinum's style around that time you'll enjoy it.

The solution is a healthy piracy ecosystem.

Seconded.

It's true, Nintendo could avoid a lot of piracy if they'd just stop drip feeding their backlog.

Well also the nintendo games people want to play are the easiest to emulate. it takes 3 minutes to download mario 64 an emulator and get it up and going its literally as simple as googling "download n64 emulator" once you get past that generation it becomes a bit more complicated because you need to have files to get the emulation working.

 

[Soi Woh Jak]

The whole idea of GOG was profiting off of abandonware.

I know that the splintering of streaming caused a resurgence in piracy, but I don't know if zoomers are even aware of what Home of the Underdogs was (in its original, uncucked form). At least its spinoff Macintosh Garden is alive and well.

Gog is scummy since it's attached to CDPR and CDPR basically said because Eastern Europe has a history of software piracy, they wanted profit off of it. I can understand gog selling indie games but abandonware should be free, I really don't give two shits if there's a remaster or the rights are split or some billionaire owns the rights of whatever the fuck. Gog has also admitted a lot of the games they sell have been open source ports of abandonware which were assembled by the communities instead of inhouse engineers, free builds of dead games which they're selling after getting the rights. This is what happened with nightdive, the kex engine was open source and kex ports of blood, doom 64 and powerslave were there online for free before nightdive announced ports. I happened to grab the doom 64 and powerslave kex open source ports from archive.org before they were taken down, right before release. That's extremely scummy, you could just release it for free like other source ports. Piracy will remain undefeated as the best method of game distribution due to issues like this, I really don't have any remorse for pirating stuff if people are going to behave like this with cultural properties, especially stuff which is older than 20 years.

Edit: Also gog and nightdive are actively trying to get the rights to nolf 1 and 2, it's currently of top priority to them. The nolf community put together neat packages for nolf goty and nolf 2, for free. I suggest getting them if you're a nolf fan, they're gonna disappear if nightdive gets the rights.
http://nolfrevival.tk/

 

[Dan of Steel]

Gog is scummy since it's attached to CDPR and CDPR basically said because Eastern Europe has a history of software piracy, they wanted profit off of it. I can understand gog selling indie games but abandonware should be free, I really don't give two shits if there's a remaster or the rights are split or some billionaire owns the rights of whatever the fuck. Gog has also admitted a lot of the games they sell have been open source ports of abandonware which were assembled by the communities instead of inhouse engineers, free builds of dead games which they're selling after getting the rights. This is what happened with nightdive, the kex engine was open source and kex ports of blood, doom 64 and powerslave were there online for free before nightdive announced ports. I happened to grab the doom 64 and powerslave kex open source ports from archive.org before they were taken down, right before release. That's extremely scummy, you could just release it for free like other source ports. Piracy will remain undefeated as the best method of game distribution due to issues like this, I really don't have any remorse for pirating stuff if people are going to behave like this with cultural properties, especially stuff which is older than 20 years.

The good news is that GOG games are free, you just have to use the right website.