EA has admitted that it didn’t properly take players’ interests into account when it recently delisted four of its classic games from GOG.

Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2, Syndicate Plus and Syndicate Wars were all delisted from the GOG marketplace on June 28, with GOG saying the removals were at the “publisher’s request”.

However, all four games were added back to the site in early August and are currently available for free until September 3.

EA marketeer Chris Bruzzo told GamesIndustry.biz the delistings were due to a breakdown in its process when managing its digital titles, and that the procedure has been changed to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“Syndicate and Ultima Underworld are back,” it read. “It seems that twenty years on there’s still plenty of love for these titles so we’re pleased to confirm that effective immediately they’ll be available again on GOG, and we’ll be keeping them in the store for the foreseeable future.

“To celebrate this we’re offering these games as a free download for four weeks.”

These aren’t the only recent examples of EA delisting its games. In May, the publisher delisted five Need for Speed games with little to no warning.

Need for Speed Carbon, Undercover, Shift, Shift 2 and The Run are all now unavailable from any digital stores, and their online servers will be turned off on August 31. At this point they’ll be single-player only for those who already own the game.

Posted: Aug 19, 2021 8:02 am
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ea-admits-it-didnt-consider-the-players-when-it-delisted-classic-titles-from-gog/