Alpha Protocol Pulled From Steam Due to Expired Music Rights

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Alpha Protocol has recently made the news as it was suddenly pulled from the Steam Store, the reason later being due to expired music rights.

Alpha Protocol, an action role-playing game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Sega, has been pulled from the Steam Store, with the official Steam page stating the following message: “Notice: At the request of the publisher, Alpha Protocol is no longer available for sale on Steam.”

A Sega spokesperson originally told Eurogamer the removal had to do with the expiry of Sega’s publishing rights, issuing the publication the following statement: “Following the expiry of Sega’s publishing rights for Alpha Protocol, the title has been removed from Steam and is no longer on sale.”

Since then Sega has amended its statement, citing the new and correct reason as that it still owns the Alpha Protocol IP, and further clarified the game was pulled from Steam due to the expiry of music rights. This is most likely due to some of the boss battles using songs like Turn Up The Radio by Autograph, and Steam deciding not to renew music licenses for an obscure game nearly a decade old.

For those who have already purchased the title — even if one has never downloaded it or deleted it since then — will still have access to the game.