ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Codemasters pulls Grid 2 from digital stores

Codemasters pulls Grid 2 from digital stores

Racing guru Codemasters has pulled 2013's Grid 2 from digital platforms including Steam.

That's according to the game's page on Valve's storefront, which says that it was pulled "at the request of the publisher" (below). Codemasters hasn't given a reason yet for the racing title being dropped from Steam as well as the PlayStation and Xbox platforms, but Grid 2's predecessor - 2008's Race Drive: Grid - saw a similar disappearing owing to licensing issues.

Grid 2 also uses licensed car designs and music for its soundtrack, which are a common reason for titles being dropped from sale after a while.

Music licensing issues was a reason that Remedy's Alan Wake was pulled from sale on Steam at the end of 2017, with the horror title returning to Valve's storefront in October 2018. Meanwhile, publishing giant Activision regularly pulls its licensed titles from digital platforms. The most recent incident of this was with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 in July 2018, but it has occurred almost annually.

In 2017, Transformers games War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, Rise of the Dark Spark and Devastation were pulled, as was The Legend of Korra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title Mutants in Manhattan and The Amazing Spider-man and its 2014 sequel.

We've reached out to Codemasters to see if it has plans to bring Grid 2 back after making tweaks to licensed content or renewing its agreements with the various companies involved. A brand new entry in the series, simply called Grid, is launching this October. 

PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.