Top 10 Video Games Taken Down For Legal Reasons

Have you ever been a kid, saving for that cool video game based on that awesome film that’s also kind of like a video game? Then suddenly, LAWYERS! In 2014, this incredible side-scrolling beat-em-up was taken off of digital storefronts! Since it had a digital-only release, that meant it was gone potentially forever. The reason? Licensing. Ubisoft had to enter agreements with a lot of different parties, including the creator, publishers, film studios, and composers. So once those agreements came to an end, it was taken down. Little Timmy was never gonna beat up those specific 8-bit enemies ever again. Fortunately, all parties involved came together to release a “Complete Edition” in 2021 after the game’s 10th anniversary.

Racing games are all about fantasy fulfillment! Speeding along the race track at 100 miles per hour, performing epic turns in cars you definitely can’t afford! Well, you know what developers Sega couldn’t afford? The license for Ferrari! Outrun: Online Arcade was the follow-up to the cult classic “OutRun” series, where the players drive a Ferrari Testarossa Spider. It’s named as one of the most influential racing games of its time, but if you use a car as fancy as Ferrari, you gotta throw some coins their way. Since the 2009 sequel was online exclusively, the game had to be pulled from storefronts after the licensing agreement with the car company ran out. Unfortunately, this game couldn’t “outrun” its contract.

The 2010 Action-espionage RPG “Alpha Protocol” was the child of Sega’s collaboration with Obsidian Entertainment. It was a very ambitious project that didn’t have the best reception upon release, but later gained a cult following. The game was influenced heavily by such spy characters as James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer. And of course, you can’t have a great spy thriller without a killer soundtrack! Unfortunately, that’s what led to the sales being halted. Once those music licenses expired in 2019, publisher SEGA couldn’t sell the game anymore. Now the only way to play it is if you have a physical copy.

When you think of Netflix, you think of movies and TV shows. But video games? Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s biggest shows, so it makes sense they would want to capitalize off their own hype. Developer and publisher “BonusXP” had experience with the brand, having released “Stranger Things: The Game” in 2017. So Netflix commissioned “Stranger Things 3: The Game” with them, releasing in 2019. While the games sat happily on digital platforms, they suddenly disappeared in 2021. The promotional DLC for the series featured in “Dead by Daylight” was also pulled. Many think this was due to the end of licensing agreements, but some believe that Netflix has its own gaming initiative in the works.

The Walking Dead is one of the most notable zombie universes in the modern-day, so fans were excited when a new game was in the works! But despite all the hype, the game flopped... hard. It was criticized for its technical problems and unengaging gameplay. And it’s because of the poor quality that it ran into legal trouble. Skybound Entertainment, the company that licensed the Walking Dead IP, terminated its contract with the publisher Starbreeze. This led to all console ports being canceled and the game being forcibly removed from other digital storefronts. It’s never a good look when a game is so bad the license holders legally revoke your right to sell it anymore.

The cartoon American family rocked the arcade with the release of the side-scrolling beat-em-up “The Simpsons” in 1991. The game proved so popular that it was ported to the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS under “The Simpsons Arcade Game”. For a long time, the physical arcade cabinets were the only way to play the classic. That was until a new port titled was released on Xbox Live and Playstation Network in 2012, featuring multiplayer and new content! But in 2013, the game was pulled from online storefronts. Most suspected the reason for this was the licensing from Fox expired. But given its critical acclaim, new licensed arcade cabinets are now in production, hoping to ship sometime this year.

This game wasn’t just taken off shelves, it was destroyed! First announced in 1999, this game had a very troubled development. The developers, Silicon Knights, consistently shifted focus onto other projects until partnering with Epic Games to use their Unreal Engine. The game was eventually released, but not without the developers suing Epic Games over breach of contract and inadequate support. They basically blamed them for how “Too Human” turned out. Epic Games was countersued for copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets and won, and the judge ordered Silicon Knights to recall and destroy all remaining copies of the game. The game was removed from Xbox Marketplace, but Microsoft eventually re-released it as a free title on the Xbox Games Store.

Fortnite wasn’t always on the Epic Games Store. Anyone who was around during Season 1 knows that the game was available on Google Play and Apple Stores. But the game was swiftly taken down after Epic Games were a little cheeky. In 2020, the company introduced a new way to pay for V-Bucks, their in-game currency, which circumvented Google and Apple's way of getting 30% of their sales. This was a big middle finger to the tech goliaths, and so they retaliated by delisting Fortnite. But Epic Games didn’t seem to sweat it too much. They then went on to make a parody ad that mocked the companies involved. Google and Apple filed antitrust lawsuits which are still ongoing.

This lawsuit over an unapproved Tetris shook the industry, and not because it was a bad game. Back in the 1980s-90s, Nintendo placed restrictions on developers using their consoles. One of these restrictions was the “10NES lock-out system”, which prevented unauthorized games from being played on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Atari sought to get around this by acquiring the plans for the system and developing a workaround. They were successful, and started publishing games under “Tengen Inc.”. One of these games was “Tetris: The Soviet Mind Game”, which angered Nintendo as there was already a licensed Tetris game available! Nintendo filed lawsuits against the company, and the game was recalled 4 weeks after its release.

Who knew a playable teaser could shock the world! Well “P.T.” did just that in 2014 when it was released onto the Playstation Store. The first-person horror exploded worldwide, creating intense hype for the game it was promoting, “Silent Hills”. But issues arose during the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which led Kojima to leave Konami and subsequently cancel Silent Hills. After his departure, the game was taken off of storefronts. Since the game was a digital-only release, the greater public would never be able to play it. Fans have recreated the game in Unreal Engine, but the original will probably never see the light of day again.