The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Sudden Steam Discount Points To Removal

A sudden price dumping of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian on Steam has started some speculation about the game’s state. Its 90% discount out of the blue would imply that the game is due for removal. Instead of its normal price of €19.99, the cost has been reduced to a mere €1.99.

There are a few developments leading to the removal speculation. For one, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is the only item for both Lego developer TT Games and publisher Disney Interactive to currently be on sale, out of a large selection of choices. Secondly, the original release date for the franchise tie-in dates back exactly seven years ago, which would indicate the end of a license deal.

As we’ve seen in the past, the end of licensing often brings an abrupt termination of games. For instance, the Deadpool game from publisher Activision was pulled last year, when their deal with Marvel expired. With the cancerous death of Games for Windows Live, several other titles have also been removed from Steam, at least to temporarily rejigger their technical guts to Steamworks. Games like Bulletstorm were taken down at some point, only to be brought back later. The most recent example is Virtua Tennis 4, which exited the storefront last month.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian will at least be available until May 18, which is how long the current 90% discount lasts. Once added to your library, you can still download the game later, unless Disney decides to pull a Konami. Earlier this month, Konami caused a ruckus by not only removing their P.T. demo from digital storefronts, but also disabling a way to download it ever again. Let that be a lesson that games preservation is a real issue that we should be aware of. Digital rights management (DRM), even Steam, can be a burden.

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed (@Daavpuke)