Somewhere in the region of 8,000 games have been removed from Steam since its inception, from the mass banning of “fake games”, to publishers removing their own titles due to licensing disputes, pending re-releases, personal disillusionment, server shutdowns and political scandals. Valve even took down one of its own games. Released in 2004 with Steam AppID 92, Codename: Gordon is a Flash-based 2D side-scroller set in the Half-Life universe, developed by Nuclearvision and published by Valve. It was removed due to a hard-coded link to the now-defunct developer’s domain, which Valve regarded as a security risk.
But removed isn’t always the same as gone, and exploring Steam’s deleted items is an adventure through modern gaming history. I spoke to some developers of delisted games to find out more.