Multiple Sega Games Are Reaching End of Service Soon; Could Disappear Forever
Nine classic Sega games are set to be removed from mobile storefronts, but they are currently available for free and still work offline. Affected titles all show in the Play and App Store with a Sega banner on the main icon, and include Crazy Taxi, Sonic CD and Golden Axe.
The games were previously part of Sega Forever, a retro game initiative launched in June 2017 but quietly shelved at the end of August 2023. It promised to release classic games from every generation of Sega consoles, including Dreamcast and the Master System, for free (although with in-game ads).
“What we’re doing is bringing two decades worth of classic gaming content, for free, back to mobile. Everything as far back as the SG-1000, through the Master System, Mega Drive (Genesis), Game Gear, Saturn and Dreamcast,” said Mike Evans, the former Chief Marketing Officer at Sega Networks, in an interview with MCV/DEVELOP Magazine at the time of Sega Forever’s launch.
“I hope it proves Sega is thinking differently and thinking about how we can take content to where our consumers are and grow the brands as well. We’ve got lots of ideas and there’s lots of scope to expand what we’re doing, both [thanks to] the business model we have and the middleware of Unity we’re using.”
Sega Less Than Forever
Sega Forever launched with Comix Zone, a beat ‘em up set inside a comic, with the artist, Sketch Turner, trapped inside his own work by an evil mutant overlord called Mortus. This was joined by Phantasy Star II, the first Sonic game, Kid Chameleon, and Altered Beast, all Genesis titles and almost all of them long departed from mobile stores.
The service was free to use, and all games were free to download, with in-game ads and purchases. However, they could also be bought outright for just $1.99, which would remove the ads. Titles could be played offline, but needed an internet connection to save data if a player didn’t buy it.
The nine titles remaining online, at the time of writing, are: Crazy Taxi Classic, Golden Axe Classics (Golden Axe I, II, and III), Shining Force Classics (Shining Force I, II, and Shining in the Darkness), Sonic CD Classic, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Ep. II, and Streets of Rage Classic. Loading a game will bring up an End of Service warning, although the More Info button just opens up the main Sega site, with no additional details related to this issue.
Game Preservation Concerns
When the Sega Forever social media accounts all ceased publishing any new posts from the end of August 2023, news circulated through other channels, such as Reddit, that some titles were already receiving End of Service messages, as is happening now.
While there was never any official announcement from Sega about the end of Forever, it’s likely that the company didn’t see the point in running it any longer when it already had Sega Ages titles available. These are retro Sega games given quality of life tweaks as with the Sega Forever ones (leaderboards, save states, etc) and they’re still being sold (for example, on the Nintendo Switch).
While it was, and is, possible to play delisted Sega games on mobile, this is only true if the games have already been downloaded and installed – if they’re removed from a device, they can’t be downloaded through a Google Play or App Store account.
Although it is possible to find some delisted games elsewhere online, such as Altered Beast through the Genesis service on Switch, these are typically part of a collection and/or through a subscription. The latter of which is prone to regular delisting measures as a service refreshes its catalogue (as is the case with Xbox Game Pass, PS Plus, and even services like Netflix and HBO MAX). Otherwise, a service can go offline once support for that device ends, as with Nintendo’s eShop for Wii U and the 3DS.
This latest bout of game delisting ties into ongoing concerns about game preservation. While emulators, abandonware sites, and unofficial fan remakes are doing the rounds, there is almost no official word from big game companies like Sega as to how, or even if, there’s any intention to preserve games.
