Two more video games have been lost to the digital abyss of expired contracts. Warner Bros.' Lego: The Lord of the Rings and Lego: The Hobbit have both been delisted from their once available digital storefronts. According to the publisher, neither game is scheduled to be available in the future, so you'll have to get a hold of a physical copy on console, or already own the game digitally if you plan on playing it. Luckily, Lego: The Hobbit was given away for free through the Humble Store last month, allowing for many people to claim it before its delisting. Lego: The Lord of the Rings was developed by Traveller's Tales, and initially released in 2012, for PC. Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. There were also handheld versions of the game on mobile, DS, and 3DS. Both titles boast user reviews that are positive, with the first having an 82% on Metacritic, and the second having a 72% average score.

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[Mikemk]

Yay, another game we can pirate without moral dilemma!

 

[SkittleDash]

Yay, another game we can pirate without moral dilemma!

You'll have to get a hold of a physical copy

Are you sure about that? lol

 

[Kamiyama]

Humble Bundle was just giving these for free couple days ago. Looks like we just got the reason for that.

 

[Nerdtendo]

Why?

 

[Xzi]

They were recently giving these games away on Humble Bundle since they knew the licenses were getting ready to expire.

 

[smileyhead]

If I have it in my Steam library but it's not installed, can I still download it?
If so, will there be a point in the future when I can't download it anymore?

 

[Mattidute]

If I have it in my Steam library but it's not installed, can I still download it?
If so, will there be a point in the future when I can't download it anymore?

If you have it in your steam library you can always download it no matter what, even if it's not on the steam store anymore.

 

[smileyhead]

If you have it in your steam library you can always download it no matter what, even if it's not on the steam store anymore.

Nice, thanks.

You should still be able to download it, but it will not be able to be purchased in the future

You got ninja'd.

 

[x65943]

If I have it in my Steam library but it's not installed, can I still download it?
If so, will there be a point in the future when I can't download it anymore?

You should still be able to download it, but it will not be able to be purchased in the future

Edit: ninja'd

 

[Thunder Hawk]

So that's what the giveaways were for...

 

[CathyRina]

Good thing I grabbed it when it was free on humble bundle.

 

[jumpman17]

I don't understand why licenses to existing games expire. The game is already made. Everyone's been paid. It's not preventing the license holder from creating their own stuff or selling the license to another company to make a new game, what harm is there in letting it simply continue to exist? I just don't get it.

 

[Mikemk]

I don't understand why licenses to existing games expire. The game is already made. Everyone's been paid. It's not preventing the license holder from creating their own stuff or selling the license to another company to make a new game, what harm is there in letting it simply continue to exist? I just don't get it.

Every copy sold is a "copy" of the game. Once the license to use the copyright expires, they're not allowed to make copies.

 

[BlueFox gui]

Are you sure about that? lol

pfff who cares for moral dilemma

 

[renjiVII]

well I'm glad that I got my both the lego LOTR and the hobbit on Humblebundle for free and applied them to my steam account before this happened not that it would matter.

 

[the_randomizer]

Ah, more companies being stingy bastards about their IP, nothing new here.

What's wrong, afraid to have longer contracts?

 

[smilodon]

Ah, more companies being stingy bastards about their IP, nothing new here.

What's wrong, afraid to have longer contracts?

Yeah, it is just the most popular fantasy IP of all times. Cmon Warner, just offer these explotation rights for free already!

 

[AlphaBravo]

Yay, another game we can pirate without moral dilemma!

This is one of the main issues as digital only purchases surpasses physical sales (very close in UK). Once licenses expire or servers shut down (forced online) many gamers lose out on having access to great games or stuff they payed for. So this amongst other good reasons is why i advocate and engage in file sharing so that others can benefit from short sighted and constricted actions of certain content creators.

 

[Zense]

This is also a point were retrogaming is completely different from contemporary gaming. Basically if something is known to become short stock or go out of stock of retrogames, the prices will skyrocket, whereas for current gen games it seems like they lower the price in order to sell as much of it as possible in the time they have. And while writing this I realised how stupid it was. Anyways, I remember licenses expiring being the reason I got a hold of Alan Wake on Steam. I'm sad I didn't know about these games going for free on humble bundle though... Wish I had known..