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Spec Ops: The Line permanently removed from Steam and other digital stores
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/30/24055807/spec-ops-the-line-delisting-licensing-2k
End of the (Spec Ops) line.
Something something digital ownership
Note: Delisted from storefront. It remains in people's libraries for play and (re)download if they have bought it already.
And if you really want it, some steam key resellers probably have some keys left. I really wanted alpha protocol since I played it so much in college, and was able to find a steam key from a reseller after sega pulled it from steam
It's also easy enough to just pirate, since the developers can't get money from it any more, anyway.
I hate to say it, but games should stop using licensed music. Or at least if it has an expiry date, which they all seem to. Every game that licenses a song becomes a ticking time bomb before it is either pulled from sale or all of the music gets patched out, even if you purchased it before then.
And if using this licensed music it'd be nice to use music from smaller bands if they don't add an expiry.
I don't understand why a company would even want to use the music if it means they can only sell the game for so long. Obviously, it's not the current reality, but I would outright refuse any deal that involves a limited amount of time to use material that goes into a video game, movie, any form of media except maybe live services that are constantly changing anyways (which is a separate issue).
At the very least, people should be made aware of a game's sale period, though I'm sure that's kept under NDA.
I mean the game came out in 2012. It's not really that absurd to base ones licensing contracts for 14 years when the medium (games) generate the vast majority of their revenue in the first months.
Most digital products have an end of life. I agree that the whole digital ownership part isn't fair, but I don't think a 14 year selling window due to licensing is the part to be mad at.
It makes sense financially if the game is expected to have a big spike of sales initially, and after a while have very few sales, so the expected additional lifetime revenue is less than the cost difference between a temporary and perpetual license.
Yeah CDPR doesn't care about Linux support at all. They for years promised Linux support for their GOGGalaxy desktop client and then abruptly deleted the webpage that promised that feature. Their Linux support IME is some dodgy shell scripts that never work right.
Lol how did I not know gog is under CDPR. Well, after all the promise and lack of delivery on cyberpunk, color me not surprised.
The Linux market is only growing, they should definitely be ashamed. Even the most random bullshit clients are supporting Linux nowadays.
CDPR has some interesting history. My understanding is that they got their start bootlegging games that couldn't be got legally in their area, and transitioned to making games for their isolated market. GoG felt like a way to he true to their roots, distributing the old games used to bootleg legally.
Yeah GOG has an interesting legacy. For a long time it was the only place to get working games for abandoned platforms that didn't require ages of tinkering. They'd give you a bundled copy of dosbox or some other emulator preconfigured to work with the particular game on Windows.
It's moved so far from its roots that they've all but abandoned the acronym. A bit like how TLC used to stand for "The Learning Channel"
So its due to sync rights. Oof. I wonder if some of the song licenses (looking at you, Experience Hendrix) are the culprit.
The Line really is an example of a painfully average game held up by its narrative, and hot damn, how well it held up. I adore some of the moments of this game, especially for their vicissitude.
It gets really murky and there is a question of intent but... I think it is truly elevated by how painfully average it is. That is the game that everyone was making and playing, right down to the overhead camera explosives shot with the mortars.
And what made The Line "work" is that... it pointed out how fucked up it is that this is so normalized. We had been trained, arguably indoctrinated, by so many Call of Duty style games that there was zero question about how fucked up what we were doing was.
Of course, because Gamers, everyone instead lost their shit and got angry that there was a false choice because they were being told they should walk away but weren't given a button prompt and a special ending to do so. Rather than understanding that "walking away" is... maybe not buying the annual, rather mid, "shoot brown people in the middle east' simulator.
Of course, because Gamers, everyone instead lost their shit and got angry that there was a false choice because they were being told they should walk away but weren’t given a button prompt and a special ending to do so.
F
I believe that the game being mid was an intentional thing done to make you dislike the gameplay.
The licenses referenced likely have to do with the game’s music. During the The Line’s menu screen, Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” can be heard while the game’s soundtrack includes Martha and The Vandellas’ “Nowhere to Run.”
The same thing happened to the first Alan Wake before they worked something out to get it back (even though it took almost a decade). Consequently, that's also one of the reasons they wrote original songs for the sequel. It's very much a gamble these days to license music for games. More or less puts it on a timeline to be removed at some point.
Perpetual sync rights licenses aren't unheard of, but typically these require an ongoing revenue split of sales or a big up front. More often than not, limited rights are used to save scratch and because its going to be for a set period, like 30 days (for an ad campaign).
In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if Take Two opted for perpetual, and decided they won't afford a per unit sale anymore, and pulled the game to stop paying.
So basically music rights owners are too greedy and demand so much money for a reasonable license they have publishers can't afford it? Sounds about right.
If you have time for some reading, here's a really great article from a few years ago that talks about licensing in video games and how complicated it can be (the first half of the article is really the only relevant part). Depending on what exactly you want to do with the music in/with the game, a developer could be looking at having to deal with more than one license. I imagine it could get expensive very easily.
Pyrocynical used Midge Ure's cover of "The Man Who Sold the World" in a video covering Half-Life 2 or a mod of it, and that meant Midge needed a cut, the original writer David Bowie, his estate needed a cut, Kobalt Songs, who owns the rights for Midge's cover needed a cut, Warner Chappal, who owns the Bowie library needed a cut, ASCAP needed a cut, PRS needed a cut...
You only get a small fraction of who owns what off SongView. It's a removed. Pyro paid $24,000 for the sync rights. That's the budget for like five of his videos right there.
I wish this process was easier. Contacting a label's sync office is typically the start of the nightmare.
Unfortunately, there's some thematically appropriate uses in the game and this is sometimes applicable in other media.
That's a bit innacurate, it's been delisted so anyone who already owns it can still play it.
What the fuck!! This is for me personally one of the best military shooters ever released. This is a fucking tragedy. If you can get it on gog or pirate it, it's a seriously phenomenal game I can't recommend it enough and it breaks my heart to see this. It starts out as a generic bland 3rd person mil shooter, but ends with an entirely different feeling.
"You're a good person."
Edit: Hendrix must be rolling in his grave to know that his anti war music in an anti war game was used to stop the anti war game from basically existing at this point in stores.
Removal from the Steam storefront doesn't mean previously purchased licenses cannot be downloaded and played.
I guess someone doesn't feel like a hero yet and got butt hurt that genocide isn't as fun as call of duty made it seem.
Something something digital ownership
Games can still be downloaded by everyone who has it, but this is really puzzling, after so many video essays made about it.
