Embracer is ripping a beloved cell recreation away from individuals who paid for it

Three weeks after shutting down the studio that produced it (which had by the way just finished going through an expensive rebrand), Embracer has determined not solely to take away their video games from cell app shops, it’s apparently taking the additional step of constructing them inaccessible even in the event you’ve already downloaded them — or within the case of Deus Ex, even in the event you’ve paid $5 or $6 to take action.

“Current players will not be able to access the games past January 4th,” reads part of a tweet from the defunct Studio Onoma, which can be seeing three free-to-play video games (Arena Battle Champions, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows and Space Invaders: Hidden Heroes) shut down. “We encourage prior in-game purchases to be used before January 4th, as they will not be refunded.”

Usually when a downloadable recreation is faraway from a digital market, you’ll be able to at the least obtain a duplicate first — in lots of circumstances, you’ll be able to even re-download bought video games indefinitely. (I can nonetheless get my Steam copies of Mass Effect 2 and Indigo Prophecy though they have been yanked from the Steam retailer a few years in the past.)

But apparently that received’t be the case right here. Like Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett says, it’s a video games preservation tragedy. It’s additionally ready-made ammunition for critics of digital purchases, and of Embracer Group itself, which is already underneath scrutiny from players each for purchasing up franchises and for taking a billion {dollars} from Saudi Arabia.

And it’s not clear why that is occurring with Deus Ex particularly. There shouldn’t be a rights situation, proper? Embracer explicitly bought the rights to Deus Ex alongside the cell video games studio that developed the title. All we all know, by way of video games journalist Jason Schreier, is that Embracer apparently decided it wasn’t interested in mobile games anymore.

The Embracer Group didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.