The developer and publisher behind the whole WWE game franchise 2K sports have delisted almost all of its Steam releases with no explanation at all. Is there something brewing up or have they lost copyrights for content used in their previous titles? That could be a plausible explanation.
WWE 2K Games Removed From Steam
To be honest, video games getting removed from the digital marketplace after being available for years isn’t this surprising considering this day and age. But it seems pretty weird for 2K to delist only legacy WWE 2K titles even though it supports a rich variety of sports titles from various categories. To make matters worse, the company decided it was fit to remove the games without informing the fanbase whether it be through an official announcement or a Reddit post. Instead of 2K Sports, an old fan of the franchise and the Reddit user Popstasia took notice of the sudden delistings and reported them on social media to inform the user base of what was currently going on.
As of now, players can access only two officially licensed WWE games on Steam. As for players that want to purchase older editions of the series digitally, they outright can’t. But if you want a workaround, then you can go to your nearby GameStop, check our eBay, or even Craigslist to purchase used physical copies of the older editions of WWE. Longtime fans, speedrunners, and individuals that want to cover the history or make comparisons of the newer titles to older titles cannot do so anymore. With this move, it seems like, 2K games don’t want to preserve older video games and video game history. Popstasia noted that 2K Sports just left WWE 2K22 and WWE 2K Battlegrounds available for purchase after delisting every other WWE 2K title. Players that still own the delisted entries still can play and access the games but it’s impossible for new players to purchase them in any official capacity. It seems pretty strange for 2K games to remove even newer additions to the series such as WWE 2K21 and WWE 2K20 that was released no more than 2 and 3 years ago. But this has been common practice in the industry for a while. Bandai Namco removed Fast and Furious just a few months after it was released globally. But the game wasn’t received well which explains the removal of the game altogether. But in the case of WWE 2K, a wide fanbase clamors to purchase the game every year and some go as far as to collect the games either physically or digitally. What makes this unprecedented is the fact that 2K games offered no warning that this would ever happen. The company failed to announce the delistings and we still don’t know why. This could inevitably force die-hard fans of the franchise to pirate the videogames that have been preserved and uploaded illegally. Either 2K Sports don’t want money or something serious is going on with the WWE 2K Franchise. Licensing-related videogame removals can certainly create some rather awkward circumstances for everyone involved. Similarly, most of the Forza Motorsport entries got removed from every online store after Forza Motorsport 7 was taken down in 2021. Fans are expected to wait for the next entry in the series instead of going back to the past and something similar is happening with the WWE 2K franchise too. And that’s pretty much it for today’s news on Appuals. Tune in next time for more. Till then see you later and goodbye!
