News Activision's Marvel titles pulled from digital stores

Several Activision games using Marvel characters have been pulled from digital storefronts.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2014/01/02/activisions-marvel-titles-pulled-from-digit/1

 

looks like I'll have to track down a copy of Deadpool soon then

 

I was going to buy Deadpool in the steam sale today if it was still on offer but guess I wont be anymore.

 

A few things seem to be going missing from Steam recently which I find rather worrying. Last week I was reading that Order of war had not only been pulled but was not even playable anymore to people who'd bought it. And yesterday I'd been looking for the Character creator for Saints Row the third and saw no sign of it. Also Dirt 2 has disappeared now for no apparent reason !

The trend is very worrying as I only buy steam games now and don't want any of them to start vanishing from my games list.

 

Apologies if i found the wrong thing, but when you say character creator do you mean the Inauguration Station ?

Back OT, if a publisher wants to stop selling their game that's up to them.
It would seem Activision may have been lent on by Marvel, as some Capcom games have also been pulled. https://twitter.com/OneOfSwords/status/418444711305940992

Whats disgraceful is when a publisher removes a game people have payed for from their library, such as mentioned by Dave Lister when Square Enix not only shutdown the servers for Order of War: Challenge, but also deleted the game from peoples library.

 

It's the same as that one, but its the one for saints row 3 I was after.. Just had a hunt around for the link and found it was back up: http://store.steampowered.com/app/55370/

Cheers Corky, I had given up yesterday but it's now downloading

 

Order of War was a unique situation with regards to Steam. It had an always online DRM scheme and the publisher (Konami, I believe) decommed the servers. Because of this if they had left it in the store for people to download (who had purchased it previously) they'd be wasting drive space as they'd never be able to play it again unless the publisher released a patch to absolve the online DRM.

With these Activision games you can no longer PURCHASE them but if you already have it in your library you will continue to be able to download/reinstall it. The purchasing option is what has been disabled on steam, which has happened with other titles as well.

 

@Malfrex, Just asking as i was told Order of War had some single player element to it, have i been misinformed ?
Also i think it reflects badly on the publisher/developer if they don't issue a patch to remove the need for servers side checking DRM, otherwise it just gives people more reasons to use software with the DRM removed instead of paying for it.

 

I know Dirt 3 is switching over to Steam from GfWL, maybe they're doing the same with Dirt 2.

Or it could just be they've run out of keys. Seen that message on a few games on steam recently, I mean, there's got to be a limited number of keys hasn't there. Once a shop sells all copies it has, it can't magic more if they're not being made anymore.

 

Capcom announced this on their blog for MvC2&3 weeks ago. XBLA had a sale and I snagged MvC2 before it was gone. That is a great game that went for $70 used on the PS1 and DC before the XBLA and PSN version was released.

I hate seeing these games get pulled. Usually they try and put them on sale before it happens. If The Simpsons and X-Men Arcade had been on sale I would have bought them for sure. I have many fond memories of playing both those games in the arcade as a kid.

 

If i remember the article correctly, there were single player elements but they still required the login servers to be active in order to use them. The game was basically useless.

 

Thanks for clearing that up for me, it does scream don't buy games from Square Enix in the future though if they are not willing to patch the game to remove the need for login servers.

 

Just picked up a copy in Tesco, was priced up at £15 on the shelf but came up as £3.75 at the till... Result!