Dear GOG team [probably posting this in a wrong place, but I'd also like community's input, to see what their thoughts on the matter are], is there any chance of seeing more racing and sports titles on Your platform?

I'm quite pleased with the selection of games You have so far, and GOG is my favorite station on the Citadel. However, here and there I get a desire to buy a racing title or a sports title, and the selection I find available on this site is quite limited. Is there a problem with obtaining a DRM free license from devs or is there something else going on (GOG team secretly holding a grudge against racing and sports titles :O)?

As an example I'll mention just one very famous yet unavailable game that unfortunately I can't find around anywhere near my whereabouts any longer - Need For Speed Underground 2. But again, this is simply an example. There is a plethora of games in both genres, and as a loyal buyer (at least I would consider myself one, given that most of the money I spent on video games ever was on this site), I'd simply like to know what's poppin', y'all?

"Mary Poppins... Is he cool?"
"Yea, he's cool."
"... I'm Mary Poppins y'all!"

Thanks for any and all answers! Keep on gaming, playas! :D

I suppose it would be very hard and costly to get a license for the game with big amount of third-party intellectual property (for NFSU2 it's cars, music, licensed vinyl brands etc). The necessity of signing all these deals again makes it almost impossible.
The getting newer games here would be a little easier, but brand licensors should be convinced for DRM-free distribution too, I guess.

GOG has also been stung by removals in the past that were presumably due to third-party licence expiry (TOCA Race Driver 3, Colin McRae Rally 2005, Race Driver: GRID).

Old racing and sports games with licenses are 99% no-go. The only digital rereleases I have seen is Street Racing Syndicate and a weird remake of Colin McRae Rally 2.0 with fewer cars than the original. (which ended up being removed from digital stores some years later)

To give you an idea of how bad licensing can be, EA removed a bunch of Need for Speed games last year and have been removing their FIFA games over the years with only the latest two remaining on storefronts. Meanwhile, Codemasters have been removing their Dirt, F1 and GRID games over the years (Dirt 4 and Rally were just removed this year), Bandai Namco removed Project Cars 1+2 this year and 2K have been removing their WWE and NBA 2K games over the years, to the point that only WWE 2K22 (and a spinoff) and NBA 2K21, 22 and 23 remain on stores. In fact, NBA 2K21 will be removed in the coming January.

As others have mentioned, it's about third party rights, which means car brands, athletes/racing drivers' names and even the name of the sports in some cases.

But not only that, sadly there is very limited appeal to some old sports games.

If there are more recent games with better physics modelling and more or less present-day athletes/drivers in the game, then a random person buying a single game would probably go for the latest ones.

There is some value in appreciating good old games for what they are, but negotiating about rights which involve companies that longer exist, people who are no longer alive, digital platforms that no longer have commercial life, is unfortunately a big task that is often not worth the effort.

The classic case is NOLF, which only requires some lawyers to go through some old documents, but no one is willing to pay for that, so the game is "abandonware". Or lawyerware, or whatever which prevents it from being sold anymore.


Having said that, I would really appreciate GOG bringing back Test Drive series, Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix series, old 8/16-bit Epyx sports games, some older versions of still running sports series.

Not to mention any version of OutRun. <3 <3 <3


But maybe some day.
They managed to bring old Interplay Star Trek adventures back, which many considered impossible, so there's always hope, I guess.

Thanks for your input Grargar. Can't believe how this whole thing with licenses is such a complex mess. A shame really. :/ You mean, No One Lives Forever? I thought they had it on GOG... I guess I mixed things us. I know it's on Abandonware... both parts are, if I'm not mistaken.

I could think of a few licence free games that are racing games as well, but their rights tend to be such a mystery as to have a silhouette cutout on their milk carton.

Like Whiplash/Fatal Racing, which is technically a futuristic racing game.

Or Re-Volt, which has exchanged hands a few times. And I can't help but notice a few of the Re-Volt sites have gone dark. Wonder what's up with that?

Wreckfest would be great to have here on GOG. Also, there are many THQ titles, I don't see it as impossible.