Purchasing a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV on Steam is no longer possible. As spotted by ResetEra and social media users, Rockstar Games’s smash hit from 2008 has been delisted from Valve’s storefront. This appears to have happened just yesterday.
There isn’t any obvious indication as to why this happened. One of the darker theories is that Rockstar is preparing to push users toward its own, newly created game launcher, but others suspect that the loss probably has to do with licensing.
Grand Theft Auto IV has been delisted on Steam for whatever reason.https://t.co/nOwEpDwv6f
— Pixelbuster (@Nitomatta) January 10, 2020
Episodes from Liberty City is still available https://t.co/30UJN5noQc pic.twitter.com/vg7WkHAQmJ
As pointed out by PCGamesN, a “substantial chunk” of music in GTA IV was removed from the game a few years ago due to expiring licenses. Delisting the game instead of just patching it (like they did in 2018) seems like an extreme move, however.
The good news is that pre-purchased copies of GTA IV won’t be affected; users can still install them at any time. Its spin-off, GTA: Episodes from Liberty City (“The Lost and Damned” and “The Ballad of Gay Tony”), remains available for purchase on Steam.