News

Star Control Origins Pulled from Steam Due to DMCA Notice

Star Control Out of Steam

Star Control Origins has been hit with a DMCA takedown on Steam and has now been pulled off sale. The claim is from Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, two creators of the classic DOS games and are in an on-going dispute with Stardock, the game’s creator and publisher. The actual URL for the game now redirects back to the main Steam page. Although the game’s DLCs are still listed. Including both free Multiverse and Reinforcement DLCs, as well as the Earth Rising season pass.

This is an unprecedented event considering both Reiche and Ford have no hand in creating the latest Star Control Origins game. DMCA notices are quite commonly used for pulling out copyright content which owners claim are theirs. Often seen for YouTube videos containing clips of games, but not an actual full game itself by other people. This is clearly a case of DMCA abuse since Stardock legally owns the IP for the game.

For those who are not aware of the legal battle on-going with the two creators, Stardock has published a Q+A on their website. It even includes screenshots of e-mails from Reiche and Ford airing their disputes.

What About GOG?

Unlike Steam, GOG is showing a backbone here and are keeping the page up for the game. Furthermore, it is still available and playable DRM-free. The game is still available on that platform at the time of writing. Most likely because DMCA is a US copyright law and GOG is based out of the US.

UPDATE: January 2, 2019 – It appears that GOG has now taken down Star Control Origins for sale as well. The direct link now redirects to the main GOG page.

Ron Perillo

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

Electronic Arts Titles Played for Over 11 Billion Hours in 2024

Electronic Arts (EA) announced today that its games were played for over 11 billion hours…

5 days ago

Just 15% of Steam Gaming Time in 2024 Was Spent on New Releases

Steam's annual end-of-year recap, Steam Replay, provides fascinating insights into gamer habits by comparing individual…

5 days ago

STALKER 2 Gets Massive 110GB Patch With 1800+ Fixes

GSC GameWorld released a major title update for STALKER 2 this seeking, bringing the game…

5 days ago

Intel Unveils Core 200H Processors Based on the Previous Raptor Lake Refresh

Without any formal announcement, Intel appears to have revealed its new Core 200H series processors…

6 days ago

Ubisoft Reportedly Developing a New Quadruple A Game

Ubisoft is not having the best of times, but despite recent flops, the company still…

6 days ago

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl Update 1.1 Fixes 1,800 Issues and Revamps A-Life 2.0

If you haven’t started playing STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl yet, now might be the…

6 days ago