EA admits it ‘didn’t consider the players’ when it delisted classic titles from GOG

EA has admitted that it didn’t properly take players’ interests into account when it recently delisted four of its classic games from GOG.

Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2, Syndicate Plus and Syndicate Wars were all delisted from the GOG marketplace on June 28, with GOG saying the removals were at the “publisher’s request”.

However, all four games were added back to the site in early August and are currently available for free until September 3.

EA marketeer Chris Bruzzo told GamesIndustry.biz the delistings were due to a breakdown in its process when managing its digital titles, and that the procedure has been changed to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“When making decisions that affect players we take the time to review exactly what the potential impacts are and whether they serve the players best interests,” he said. “When we delisted Syndicate and Ultima Underworld we missed that step and so didn’t fully consider the players perspective.

“From the level of interest players showed in delisting these games, it was clear that people still wanted them to be available, so we did two things.

“The first was to ensure that going forward we have a process in place that considers the player perspective in listing decisions. The second was to relist the titles and make them available to as many people as possible with a month-long promotion.”

When the four games were reinstated on GOG, they were accompanied by a message from EA to its customers.

“Syndicate and Ultima Underworld are back,” it read. “It seems that twenty years on there’s still plenty of love for these titles so we’re pleased to confirm that effective immediately they’ll be available again on GOG, and we’ll be keeping them in the store for the foreseeable future.

“To celebrate this we’re offering these games as a free download for four weeks.”

These aren’t the only recent examples of EA delisting its games. In May, the publisher delisted five Need for Speed games with little to no warning.

Need for Speed Carbon, Undercover, Shift, Shift 2 and The Run are all now unavailable from any digital stores, and their online servers will be turned off on August 31. At this point they’ll be single-player only for those who already own the game.