Three titles—Creepy Tale, Creepy Tale 2, and Strike Force Kitty—have been removed from the Xbox Store this week. Unlike standard delistings where owners can typically still download their previously purchased content, these games have been categorized as "hard delisted," rendering them inaccessible to users.
The Cause of the Dispute
According to reports, the removal stems from a conflict between the games' developer and their publisher, No Gravity Games. The developer claims that No Gravity Games has violated their publishing agreement and failed to distribute owed royalties for several years. The developer has expressed a desire to see the titles return to the store under a new publisher, though they described the current situation as a “very slow and complicated process.”
Platform Impact
The removal of these titles is not limited to the Xbox ecosystem. The games have already been removed from the Nintendo eShop, and they are expected to be pulled from the PlayStation Store imminently. While the exact reason for the "hard" status of the delisting on Xbox remains unconfirmed, speculation points to Microsoft complying with specific legal demands related to the ongoing dispute.
What This Means for Players
In many cases of digital delisting, players who have already purchased a game can still install it via their library or the game's achievement page. However, reports indicate that this workaround is currently failing for these three titles. Additionally, another title published by No Gravity Games, Bullets & Brains, has also been removed from the store recently.
While this situation is restrictive for owners of these specific games, it appears to be an isolated incident involving a specific contractual dispute rather than a broader shift in digital library policy. There has been no official statement from Microsoft regarding the specific legal mechanism used to trigger these hard delistings.