Micolash
[04] Fighter
not that surprising considering the game is almost ten years old
SoulCalibur IV DLC removed from online stores.
- Thread starter cheddarsword
- Start date
NeoStrayCat
[10] Knight
Yeah, but the DLC content (and its X360 digital version) was removed like a year prior or so, so yeah. That, and possibility of the Star Wars license/rights.
Micolash
[04] Fighter
Good point. It probably has something to do with the Star Wars characters, and the fact that LucasArts doesn't exist anymore as a game developer. That, coupled with the fact that Disney owns Star Wars now and might not want their family-friendly brand associated with stuff like this:
HydroJames
Shining Sea Dragon
They own a franchise where warriors mutilate each other with laser swords. Which is worse between sex/nudity and violence?Good point. It probably has something to do with the Star Wars characters, and the fact that LucasArts doesn't exist anymore as a game developer. That, coupled with the fact that Disney owns Star Wars now and might not want their family-friendly brand associated with stuff like this:
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SomeRandomHuman
[13] Hero
Official statement on that varies depending on where you live, lol.
Also in modern SW nobody really was openly mutilated, all violence was "family-friendly".
Micolash
[04] Fighter
Sex seems to be worse than violence, at least according to American culture. You can show people's faces get eaten on TV (Walking Dead) but at the same time you're not allowed to ever show a female nipple.
Yoshimitsu86
[08] Mercenary
If someone buy Soulcalibur IV on disk now, what he get? Incomplete game (without any dlc)?
yes, game also unreleased on any digital marketplace. would be cool if this game re-release in comptele edition also on digital marketplace. but star wars (disney) copyright maybe block namco to re release.
maybe was be better if star wars dlc don't go out at all
Soulcalibur IV is dead! huh...
yes, game also unreleased on any digital marketplace. would be cool if this game re-release in comptele edition also on digital marketplace. but star wars (disney) copyright maybe block namco to re release.
maybe was be better if star wars dlc don't go out at all
Soulcalibur IV is dead! huh...
Rusted Blade
[14] Master
If you purchase the XBOX 360 disc (and still have a machine capable of playing it), you will still have access to Yoda and the Apprentice and two of the three Star Wars stages (and all other game content) since that content is all loaded on the disc, but you will not be able to purchase access to Darth Vader and the third stage, because those licenses can no longer be purchased online--the data for that bonus character and stage is still on the disc, but you'll have no legal and licensed means of unlocking it on your console. If you have a copy of the PS3 version of the game, you'll have access to Darth Vader, the Apprentice, and two of the three Star Wars stages, but you will not be able to unlock Yoda or the third Star Wars stage. If you have previously unlocked this content on either console and keep it all (including the file that authenticates the license) you should be able to continue to use all of the content.
As to SC IV re-release, there's always a possibility that Namco reserved the right to re-license these characters for future versions of the game under specific conditions, but that is unlikely given the licenses were taken off the stores of both consoles. But they could always relaunch the game without these three guest characters, similar to how Link was omitted from SCII:HDO, so there's really no reason this issue would block a port; though some purists would probably not be happy about the absence of three characters from an entry that already has a mixed reception in terms of overall content, many people considered the Star Wars characters and odd fit to begin with, Yoda in particular.
The major issue here though is clearly that Namco does not view polished versions (or really any re-releases) of most of its classic fighters as likely to generate enough money to warrant the cost of porting (especially if they get an HD treatment). And they are probably right--SCII is probably the most marketable classic SC game they have and SCII:HDO still seems to have sold only a small fraction of the copies they get for a new entry and was probably only worthwhile because it helped shore up fan interest in the franchise in the years following SCV. I do hope that eventually the arithmetic makes more sense for them to re-release as many of the classic games as possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it happening any time soon.
AriesWarlock
[12] Conqueror
It was my understanding once you buy digital content, it's always available to you even though they may remove the content from the store. Sucks if what the OP says is true.
Yoshimitsu86
[08] Mercenary
if buy Soulcalibur IV disk on xbox 360 and playstation 3 you will get complete game version without any download?
why Soulcalibur IV never release on digital marketplace? i think star wars content not reason! tekken 6 also never release on digital marketplace. oh, maybe xbox 360 digital release was, but exactly not on ps3.
Rusted Blade
[14] Master
Sadly, no, XBOX live (and most digital platforms for games) don't work that way. If you look in the small print of the relevant licensing agreements you'll see that you are almost always purchasing a temporary license and that the publisher and distributor both reserve the right to terminate access for a variety of reasons. Now, the publisher and the platform content provider can and sometimes do create the scenario you describe (they can remove the file from the e-shop but allow re-download for those who have already purchased the content in question. But in almost all instances of all licenses and sales agreements for digital content, they can also use a much simpler (and more common) approach of simply removing access the content altogether. In some instances this is just done for old content (including full games), whereas in other cases, it might be done because the content in question licensed intellectual property from another commercial media entity.
The latter is very likely to be what happened here: the licenses for the Star Wars characters were purchased from what was then LucasArts (or rather, from LucasFilm as the ultimate owner of the intellectual property in the form of character rights), but that only came about because 1) they were trying cross-promote the hell our The Force Unleashed, which LucasArts was trying to sell as the greatest game of a console generation and the best Star Wars game of all time (it turned out to be a mostly pretty forgettable mid-tier action game) and 2) this was during a lull in Star Wars popularity: it was just a few years after the release of the last of the prequels and a couple of years before the Disney acquisition. So the stars aligned for some cross promotion licensing that would never have occurred had Disney already owned LucasFilms and its assets at that time.
Still, LucasFilms was, even at that time, a hugely experienced and successful company when it came to licensing their IP, so they almost certainly would have put a term of years on how long their characters could be used in that game. Flash forward a few years later and the license has expired. The companies could agree to license them further but Namco isn't going to pay that expense on a game for last generation consoles, and even if they were interested, it is unlikely that the now Disney-owned LucasFilms wants it now once again highly lucrative characters appearing as guest characters in a third-party product, diluting their brand. With no license to use those characters, Namco cannot continue to sell them as a part of the game, except as their licensing agreement allows (and again, LucasFilm would not have allowed for any but certain reasonable uses--i.e. the characters already available and licensed to the consumer with the physical game disk--Namco would have probably negotiated so that they could continue to sell those disks for as long as they were viable, but the bonus characters as a separate purchase would have been another matter.
You, meanwhile, as the consumer, would have the least agency in negotiating your access to the content. The agreements you tacitly accept through use of XBOX live/PSN and the licenses you agree to when you purchase and/or download a game, and so forth contain a huge amount of legal language that make it clear that you have a temporary license and that you can be forestalled from continued access at almost any time. So, long story short, no, you do not maintain access to most of the games content you buy online indefinitely--and both publishers and distributors are getting increasingly comfortable with cutting you off after a few years. For example, if you've had an XBOX live or PSN account for a long time, go back and look at your last gen achievements/trophies list and compare it against the list of content you presently have active licenses for. I bet you will find that there's a lot you just cannot download anymore, even if you still have the older consoles; a significant number of your games are likely to be unavailable, especially if you've been availing yourself of all of the "free with" games over the years.
Yoshimitsu86
[08] Mercenary
would be cool if namco re-release Soulcalibur IV on disk (with all dlc - complete edition) under termination of license. they should to predict such things... but now they lost that chance.
AriesWarlock
[12] Conqueror
UPDATE Speaking with the Sony represenatives, Yoda has been permenantly removed due to Disney buying out the Star Wars license in 2012, 4 years AFTER Soul Calibur 4's creation, the action was on Namco's part because they could no longer keep the rights.
Rusted Blade
[14] Master
UPDATE Speaking with the Sony represenatives, Yoda has been permenantly removed due to Disney buying out the Star Wars license in 2012, 4 years AFTER Soul Calibur 4's creation, the action was on Namco's part because they could no longer keep the rights.
Well...a few things there. First, I would take with a grain of salt anything told to you by a random dude on a forum when they claim to have definitively gotten to the bottom of something like this. No random customer care representative speaking to a random customer inquiring about such matters is going to have any detailed knowledge of why that item was taken off the store or what the legal status of a particular licensee looks like (especially since in this case the licensing issues reach into the parent-asset relationship of a companies that don't even have a relation to Sony). That's all information that is many paygrades above anything that a customer support rep would know, and beyond that, private license agreements are not details media companies disclose to random individuals. In certain instances (say if there were a furor over removed content large enough to get media interest itself) a company's legal or press services might disclose such information, but that a customer support rep talking to someone on the Sony forums would know and disclose the status of a license (or even know how a license operates for such media)--nah, no way.
It's possible that random forum dude got a hold of some guy in customer service who confirmed that the content was no longer available and was willing to speculate that it was a licensing issue, but that's about the sum total of the granularity of detail you would ever get through customer support on why a particular piece of software was pulled from sale. This would fit with how clumsily/inaccurately "Natsuna_Emblem" describes the situation: there is no such thing as "the Star Wars license" for anyone to buy; it's just not a way anyone with significant knowledge of IP would talk. Second, Disney didn't buy Star Wars IP, it bought LucasFlim and its subsidiaries, which in turn owns almost all Star Wars intellectual property in existence. This may seem like splitting hairs, but the legal distinctions between these two situations are actually quite significant. (Actually Disney may well very well have purchased IP directly from George Lucas in the sale, or they may have transfered ownership of any number of Star Wars IP assets since, but I'm trying to keep the description here as a simple as possible, given the subject matter!)
Anyway, that's all just some nitpicking--based upon one of my bugbears: random internet/fan speculation falling as grist into the rumor mill and coming out packaged as "known fact"--to point out that we will likely never know with absolute certainty what happened here. That said, I agree that, given these are Star Wars characters, the most likely explanation by far is that the license expired for the use of those three characters and other Star Wars imagery. But again, there's nothing particularly atypical in any of this. Conditional licensing of IP is not new and has become particularly prominent in the games industry. Now, I'm not saying it's a great development by any means: I agree it rather makes one long for the days when, upon guying a media product, you had an expectation of knowing what would be in it and that the license would allow you that narrow use in perpetuity. Alas, consumers never agitated (indeed, largely did not seem to notice) as this sort of thing became prominent in the games industry. And now it is our status quo. And given how non-discriminating consumers in the industry have become about these practices (while paradoxically being incredibly vocal, if not outright pissy and demanding, about other aspects of the product), I don't think it's changing any time soon.
Yoshimitsu86
[08] Mercenary
https://soulcalibur.fandom.com/wiki/Soulcalibur_IV said:
i told you namco should have been re-release this game with complete dlc on disk before 10/27/16. but now copyright to kill this game
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Rusted Blade
[14] Master
Well, it's not as simple as that. The complete dlc actually is probably on the disk--it's been a long time since I looked, but given these were contemporaneously released editions on the two major consoles, each of which gave you two free Star Wars characters, but required you to purchase the third, I would say it is virtually certain as both a technical and marketing matter, that those discs had all the content on them and you mere purchased a key file that flagged the software to unlock that character for use.
So it really would have made absolutely zero sense at the time for Namco to release a "complete" edition, when sales for the game were already stalled out, when all anyone needed to do to get the exact same content is buy the standard version and that license. The meager sales that such an edition (which would be ridiculed as "You mean the exact same game already on the marketplace? Why didn't you just put the DLC on sale?") would generate would not be worth the cost of releasing a "new edition" which, aside from the means by which you acquired one character, was the exact same product as before.
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Yoshimitsu86
[08] Mercenary
what about platinum series or essentials? also re-released exact same product as before! that should have been done before when sales for the game were already stalled out. Similar: Mortal Kombat 9 -> Mortal Kombat 9 Komplete Edition, Mortal Kombat X -> Mortal Kombat XL, Injustice 2 -> Injustice 2 - Legendary Edition
Byros
[10] Knight
Whenever possible I always try to avoid digital purchases for games, they can always shutdown the servers and take your money with them.
There' still no subtitute to the disc that can work anytime, online or offline.
There' still no subtitute to the disc that can work anytime, online or offline.
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Spanky
[13] Hero
Wow... I'm hella late to the party. I didn't know the DLC for SC4 got pulled. It makes sense for the various reasons folks have brought up in this thread, of course. SC4 definitely feels like an old game now...
sytus
[14] Master
It does. It's a nice novelty having all three Star Wars characters in the same version of the game but the mechanics really have moved on from that game plus I couldn't live without the movement speed that we have in SC6.