10 Video Games That Were Pulled From Digital Store Shelves (And Why)
CD Projekt Red isn't the only gaming company that's been cyber-punk'd.
One of the scary things about the digital revolution is the way that our ownership of games, movies, TV shows, and music could be affected for the worse.
If you recently went out and picked up Tenet on blu-ray, or a copy of Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PS5, you own those forever. The discs are in your hands, and you can hold on to them until hell freezes over, or until England wins the World Cup. You'll be waiting a while for both of those things, but at least you have the option!
However, if you buy all your games digitally, then it's a different story.
Maybe there's a title you've had your eye on for a while, but you haven't yet downloaded it to your console or PC. Well, it sucks for you, but there's a chance that this game might just be yanked from digital storefronts before you've had the chance to buy it, which - if you own a disc-less console - means you're totally out of luck.
And this happens a lot more than you might think. Games getting pulled from the virtual store shelves of PC, Xbox, and PlayStation is a frustrating issue, and while some titles eventually make a triumphant return... others are vanquished for good.
10. DuckTales Remastered
Gorgeous little platformer DuckTales Remastered was released on a variety of systems towards the end of 2013, receiving favourable reviews across the board, and - due to the popularity of the brand - presumably selling quite well.
But then, a whopping six years later, something strange happened.
In August 2019, publisher Capcom randomly informed players that the game was going to be removed from digital storefronts within a matter of days, meaning that Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Steam users would be forced to hunt down a physical copy if they wanted to play the game in the future.
In its blog post, Capcom didn't provide an exact reason why DuckTales was about to fly away, but many people assumed that licensing issues were to blame.
In a final twist in the tail, Capcom later announced that the game was coming quack - sorry, back - to digital storefronts in March 2020, and once again, they failed to provide even a brief explanation as to why this whole debacle happened in the first place.