The proverbial ban hammer has struck a set of digital titles once more, sending them to the abyss known as Defunct Town. Or, more simply put, EA has snapped away various titles from the official F1 racing videogame series off of various digital storefronts.
This was done rather covertly, as the company did not provide much of a warning. The discovery was actually made a regular forum user, in this case being a user named “ArtHands” from NeoGAF. There, they mention that F1 Race Stars, and F1 2012-2018 are all gone, totaling seven delisted titles in all.
All seven of these F1 games have been removed from Steam and the PlayStation Store, although the PS Store is strangely still retaining them for the time being. It’s unclear with the delisting only occurred on two out of the three storefronts, however.
While EA has yet to explain why these titles have disappeared at all, it’s likely due to the licensing rights having expired. Considering their age, it wouldn’t be profitable to renew said licenses, so now the titles have simply been pulled out of digital circulation.
Considering that the F1 video game series has been supplied with annual releases for over a decade now, the loss of the legacy entries isn’t entirely an issue. However, when looked at from a preservation aspect, those title snow only exist as used physical copies and backups in servers for users who already purchased them. Thus, there might come a time where they will be truly lost to time.
Electronic Arts inherited the rights to the F1 game series when it bought Codemasters in 2020. The studio still continues to work on the F1 series, as well as other juggernaut racing IPs like GRID, DiRT and Project CARS, albeit now under EA’s management.
The next F1 title, F1 2022, should release by this summer.
Source: Exputer
