The pulled page indicates it was an IARC classification i.e. it was automatically classified based an Konami's answers to a generic survey distributed to classification boards globally. If Konami contest the automatic classification then it will be looked at by actual humans who may determine that offensive content is contextualized to a degree that it can be released (or failing that give a list of content that needs to be modified).
That list is crazy, so many niche platforms and limited availability:
Glitch was a failed Flash based MMO, that launched as a production release, was pulled back into beta 2 months later and then closed in late 2012. During this second beta they seemed to host a virtual death cult. Its messaging framework was later rebranded as Slack
Tenya Wanya Teens was designed to tour as an art piece last exhibited in 2014
Alphabet was bundled with Experimental Game Pack 01, a promo for LA Game Space a failed incubator/exhibition space the broke up in 2018
Woorld was a mixed reality game developed for Google Tango, a tech that hasn't seen support on a new device since 2017
Crankin's Time Travel Adventure was developed for the Playdate and was featured in Season 1. This is still available, in fact it is a pack-in title with the Playdate.
I've just wish listed Wattam, its his only still available non-Katamari title that runs on a mainstream platform.
AFAIK Dallas Buyers Club was the last major case and the conditions the courts placed on any contact caused the rights holders to decide it wasn't worth the bother.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35547045
The court told them they could buy the infringer's contact details as a bulk lot that averaged $127 per person. But only if they invoiced for $127 + whatever they were charging for the film. In addition the court would need to review and approve any draft correspondence and call scripts.
All up it feels like the court was taking the most hostile interpretation of the law to protect individuals from being harassed by the business. Good stuff.
Hotline Miami 2, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Saints Row 4 are among dozens of games to have been denied an Australian release [...]
This is only partially true, Saints Row 4 and The Stick of Truth released modified versions in Australia. Hotline Miami 2 remains without and official release in Australia.
As for Silent Hill f? OFLC have pulled the page listing it as RC.
The screenshot of the pulled page indicates it was an IARC classification i.e. it was automatically classified based an Konami's answers to a generic survey distributed to classification boards globally. If Konami contest the automatic classification then it will be looked at by actual humans who may determine that offensive content is contextualized to a degree that it can be released (or failing that give a list of content that needs to be modified).
The older gemers may remember but there is a whole generation that has spung up since.
Edit: a quick look shows there were 1.7 billion people born between 1995 and 2007 i.e. born in the period that would have trurned 18 between 2013 and 2025.. This corresponds to 20% of the global population.
If we were just talking PlayStation I would say 97% is near enough to make no difference but if we compare both platforms together its only 67% and that is enough to influence strategy. A console only release in 2025 is unlikely to eclipse GTA5's position as "fastest-selling entertainment product in history".
That's a bit like saying you can buy flour and bake bread.
Some people are interested in a product that is immediately ready to use as a simple convenience. Others might be on console that doesn't offer the origial title or allow mods.
If it's got platformer elements, then it's a platformer, right?
Yes!
But I also argue that the second half of '89 counts as 90's and that Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap was the best platformer I played in first half of the decade.
The 1.7 million customers who originated from a top 2023 release
This wording is a bit strange, are they tracking the new steam accounts that signed up to buy a specific 2023 title (like Baldur's Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, or Starfield)?
If so it says more about the specific demographic attracted to that unknown title than it does about Steam in general.
To gather data illustrating the effectiveness of that approach, we went all the way back to 2023 and identified the biggest 20 releases of that year. We looked at every new first-time purchaser generated by those products (that is, an account making a purchase, or redeeming a Steam key, for the first time) for a total of 1.7 million new users.
So what I really want is a game that gives me a sense of achievement, and with the vaguest possibility that I actually might finish it. And so it'd be really interesting to know how many games are actually finished, and how many games are just abandoned by what proportion of people.
It can be fun to go to an achievement/trophy tracker and compare the numbers for the awards for first and last story missions.
The future is indeed dumb. The 2022 GoldenEye has it's own baggage.
I don't think Nintendo was willing to let Microsoft sell it as a physical product (collectors would view it as superior to Nintendo's NSO requirement).
In a situation where sales are legal and the publisher or platform later choose to remove it from sale then it usually remains available in your library for download.
But in a situation where the publisher never had a legal right to sell the product then they were never legally able to grant distribution rights to the platform? In that case the license offered to the purchaser is invalid and it may be pulled from libraries.
Its still missing physical object's killer app: permanent license transferability.
With physical objects I can buy them from others, give them to friends, etc and that transfer can be permanent.
All of this lend and automatically return is just a mechanism to block permanent license transfer.