Line #21 MissingEpisode/Videogames


1	[[foldercontrol]]
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3	[[folder:General examples]]
4	* Many computer games, after their initial publishing run, suffer from a problem somewhat unique to the medium. As computers (and screens) improve, it can be quite rewarding to produce a VideoGameRemake or UpdatedRerelease to take advantage of newer technology, except that the source code and other assets of many commercial games are rarely held onto. For example, when the ''[=xu4=]'' and ''[=Exult=]'' projects wanted to make source ports of ''VideoGame/UltimaIV'' and ''[[VideoGame/UltimaVII VII]]'', Creator/{{Origin\|Systems}} admitted that it had lost everything. And when ''VideoGame/{{Fallout Tactics\|BrotherhoodOfSteel}}'' was under development just a few years after the previous ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' game had been released, it turned out that virtually all of the original game's [=3D=] assets had been lost, and nearly all of it ended up being remodeled.
5	* Many games that [[NoExportForYou don't make it overseas]] are this to the foreign fans of a series who are cursed with hearing people who actually did get it talk about it, but will never play it themselves. If they're lucky, it's an old game that will get a FanTranslation. If not, they're screwed.
6	** Some may eventually be released, even if in a different form, such as ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' (part of ''Final Fantasy Origins'' for the [=PlayStation=]) and ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII III]]'' for the Nintendo DS and ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' (released in the US about 7 years later for the Super NES on the ''VideoGame/SuperMarioAllStars'' cartridge as ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'').
7	* This happens ''constantly'' with embedded online games (mostly MediaNotes/AdobeFlash nowadays, but some older ones used Shockwave). See DefunctOnlineVideoGames for a list of some:
8	** Anything that was on Bonus.com in the late '90s/early 2000s, since the site is now defunct and most of the media on it (mostly games but some stories too) were endemic to it.
9	** The BBC's website had a game that revolved around an Allosaurus called ''[[VideoGame/BigAlGame The Big Al game.]]'' It was very good for a web game. You started as a baby and had the option of staying near your mother, who moved on her own but would protect you if you were on the same tile, or venturing off. You moved one tile at a time searching for food and avoiding predators, including bigger Allosaurus, and even your own mother if you spent too long away from her. The game revolved around eating to get bigger. To eat, you would find prey, then click to attack it and if the its strength bar is lower than yours you eat them and if it is higher you did damage but also got injured. You could find a pile of hidden eggs for lots of free food, but they attracted other small predators, which is actually a good thing if you found it when you were big enough to eat them (more easy food). There is also a carcass, but you died if you got too close to it because of rushing water or something. The second to last level involved searching for a sauropod migration ground and forming a pack with other Allosaurus to take one down, and if you succeeded, you go to the last level, which is spent mating as many times as you could to add to your score. To mate, you had to select the correct series of actions to woo the female, get it wrong and they attack, and if you selected a certain series of actions you trigger a hidden EasterEgg; the female would ask you a random trivia question about Allosaurus, mate with you if you got it right, attack you if you got it wrong. It's not known why this game was removed, but now it's gone with few knowing it ever existed. Now you are one of them.
10	** There was also another BBC game called ''"The Evolution Game"'' which would have been fun if it wasn't so brokenly hard. It was similar to "The Big Al game" in principle. You moved one tile at a time to find food or avoid predators, and in theory evolved over time into a human. In practice, it was [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable literally impossible]] to make it past the first 3-4 life stages without starving to death or getting killed by a predator, which is probably why it eventually got taken down.
11	** ''Website/{{Millsberry}}'' was an advertisement game for General Mills. It ran for 6 years but shut down in 2010.
12	** When [=GarfieldGames=].com shut down, many exclusive Flash games disappeared along with it. While some are available on Garfield's official website, others like ''Go Fish!'', the most polished Go Fish! game on the Internet, weren't so lucky.
13	%%* Any DefunctOnlineVideoGames, which mostly only remain through footage recorded by the fanbase before the servers were shut down.
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16	[[folder:Hardware-related examples]]
17	* Due to the locked-down, walled garden nature of Qualcomm's BREW platform for CDMA cellphones[[note]]In what appears to be an effective yet draconian DRM scheme, BREW games are encrypted and downloads are tied to the subscriber's account, making it hard if not impossible to rip and pirate even for preservation's sake.[[/note]], practically all games made for it were presumed to be lost forever, if not still stored on an old LG phone gathering dust in someone's cabinet. One such example is the Verizon VCAST-exclusive release of ''[[VideoGame/NeedForSpeedUnderground Need for Speed Underground 2]]'', whose remaining footage is that of a [[https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/need-for-speed-underground-2-review/1900-6129297/ review]] from Gamespot; the version made infamous by WebVideo/KuruHS is actually a bootleg GameMod of ''[[Film/TheFastAndTheFurious Fast & Furious: Fugitive]]''. It also doesn't help that, according to Gamespot's review, assets for the Verizon release of ''NFS Underground 2'' are downloaded ''ad hoc'' when the game needs it to save on device storage space (considering that memory for mobile phones was at a premium back then) as opposed to a single monolithic package. In contrast, Java ME fared better on a preservation standpoint, as while piracy was rampant due to the lack of DRM, it had the side effect of also allowing for preservation as JAR files for popular mobile games of the day can still be found on the web and played on a suitable emulator. Also contributing to the problem with BREW is its market share compared to Java ME--BREW is only available for CDMA devices, while Java ME is a lot more popular due to it being a more or less open standard and thus cheaper to implement especially in developing markets. Same goes for Platform/{{Symbian}}, though pirated games and apps for S60 Third Edition phones onward require a hacked device to run unsigned code, and emulators for those aside from the official Nokia [=SDKs=] are still in very early development.
18	** This is no longer the case when dumps of BREW games have surfaced on the web in the late 2010s to 2020s, either as retail copies or beta/debug builds as in the case of ''Underground 2''.
19	* By virtue of it being a satellite broadcast system, most of the games offered on Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s [[Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem Super Famicom]] Platform/{{Satellaview}} service haven't and will most likely never be re-released again. The service relied on broadcasting games and other pieces of media to those who ponied up the equivalent of an extra $140 or so to buy the peripheral in the first place. These games included unique versions of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' (with their own unique plots), a ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' GaidenGame styled after one of the minigames from the original title, a pseudo-sequel to ''VideoGame/FZero'' with new tracks and circuits, a variant of ''VideoGame/{{Excitebike}}'' with Mario as a playable character and much more. Due to the way the games were distributed, they could only be played if the person had a compatible memory pak and downloaded the title, meaning that once the service ended, very few copies of the games were left in existence. While some of the games (like the ''Zelda'' titles) have been preserved as ROM files and distributed online, plenty more have been lost in the ether.
20	* Back in the mid 90s, Sega had the digital distribution service known as ''Sega Channel''. Players would receive games straight to their Genesis via a TV signal. Unfortunately, no means of storing them was provided, so the games would be lost after the system was shut down. As as result, any Sega Channel-exclusive game versions were never dumped and are now lost forever. Among them is the Sega Channel-exclusive game ''Garfield: The Lost Levels'' (three levels cut from ''VideoGame/GarfieldCaughtInTheAct'', which does not include the sci-fi one from the PC version), the American version of ''Mega Man: The Wily Wars'' (which eventually got released with the Sega Genesis Mini over 20 years later) and a Genesis port of ''Chessmaster''.
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23	[[folder:Specific examples]]
24	* This happens to most [=MMOs=] once they shut down, unless fans are able to preserve them on fan-run private servers separate from the ones the creators maintained.
25	** ''VideoGame/TheSimsOnline'' has been lost, but there have been attempts to restore it. The first major attempt at it was ''TSO Restoration'', which was abandoned due to EA sending a cease-and-desist letter to the developers. Today, the most successful restoration project for ''TSO'' is [[http://freeso.org/about/ FreeSO]], an open source port of the game.
26	** ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' once had an MMO type game called ''VideoGame/BigFatAwesomeHouseParty''. By the time it ended in 2009, it had over 13 million users.
27	* When [=TripleJump=] did their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9AZOnxoc6o Worst of 2004 list]], they noted one of the games that could have entered, the gladiatorial management game ''[[https://oldpcgaming.net/coliseum/ Coliseum]]'', missed the cut because there is no footage of it online, describing it as "something so rubbish that no one thought of preserving its memory".
28	* Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s first ever video game, ''VideoGame/EVRRace'', a horse racing simulator, seems to have been lost to time as no cabinets for the game are known to have survived to the present day.
29	* A small game known as ''m199h'', published anonymously on [[Platform/MainframesAndMinicomputers PLATO]] in 1974, is [[http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2011/12/earliest-cprgs.html generally considered]] to have been the [[UrExample very first known]] WesternRPG (and digital RolePlayingGame, overall) ever released. Unfortunately, because the PLATO mainframe was intended for [[StopHavingFunGuys "serious academic study and coursework"]], most games on it were deleted permanently as fast as the admins could find them, leading to all copies of ''m199h'' being lost to time (the much better known and well-preserved WRPG titles like ''VideoGame/{{dnd}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Dungeon}}'' only came later).
30	* The ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' DLC ''Pinnacle Station'' has been lost to history; the source code has been lost, and the backups obtained from its developer Demiurge are corrupted beyond salvation, meaning that [=PS3=] players who want to enjoy this DLC are out of luck, though there's [[https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/832 a fan restoration]] for ''Legendary Edition'' on PC.
31	* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
32	** ''Metal Gear Solid Mobile'', an award-winning {{Interquel}} set between ''Metal Gear Solid'' 1 and 2 with a whole new plot and game mechanics, was released just before touch-screen phones became the new thing, and thus was immediately rendered incompatible with everything. It doesn't help that it was only available in Japan and to people using Verizon phones in America - so [[NoExportForYou many people in Europe thoroughly missed out]]. It was only available for digital download from companies that have now shut down on phones that impossible to emulate. It was released on the [=NGage=], and that version is available through illegal channels, and can be emulated by the truly determined.
33	** ''Piece Walker'', a rather enjoyable promotional game for ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'' where you compete with another player to complete jigsaws, is down from the website and can no longer be played. It has not been released again in any form.
34	* ''Namu Amida Butsu!'', the precursor to ''VideoGame/NamuAmidaButsuUtena''. Due to that game's obscurity before it was shut down and more successful ''-UTENA-'' took its place, there are very few screenshots and ''even less'' gameplay footage uploaded online, and whatever videos available only cover small bits of the game and not its entirety or in the least its main parts, effectively making this game lost and forgotten among Japanese fans, and ''unheard of'' among overseas fans.
35	* ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'' has this with ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingMobile'', a side-scrolling adaptation of the gameplay made in 2004. As the name suggests it was a mobile title, but like the ''Metal Gear Solid Mobile'' title above it was made for old number pad-style phones, not as a smartphone app. The primary way to get it was to text "CLANK" to a specified number, which no longer works. The only way to play it today is to download a Java file and an accompanying phone emulator.
36	* ''Rescue The Russian Leopard'' is an obscure PC game by the World Wild Life Fund. The player was charged with saving the rare Amur leopard, by securing funding and habitat, fighting poachers and forest fires, increasing the breeding population, etc. It was a realistic sim, with the aim of the game being to actually use it to find a real-world solution to this problem. This game was almost certainly pointless and a waste of funding to make to begin with, being made for a completely lost cause as there is little interest in or hope of preserving this species, but as a game, it actually was fun, unique and strategic, if NintendoHard. The game appears to have completely disappeared of the face of the Earth, possibly only findable now on unsafe websites if even that.
37	* ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' and ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' had a number of free DLC released for the Dreamcast versions, which were excluded from later rereleases and are no longer available to download via official means. Fans managed to preserve most but not all of the DLC. Among the permanently lost content are the Black Market Chao downloads which included rare Chao not available through any other means (although they can still be obtained through hacking) for both games, the first New Year DLC for Japanese ''Sonic Adventure'', and at least one kart race track for the international version of ''Sonic Adventure''.
38	* The MMORPG ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has removed a number of missions from its game as Cryptic went back and started reworking them. The more notable one was "State of Q", where the player went back in time to the Battle of Wolf 359 to save [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Benjamin Sisko]] from the Borg of 2409, sent back in time by, presumably, the Iconians. Cryptic has stated, though, that they'd like to revisit this mission one day.
39	* Educative video game ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sumerian_Game The Sumerian Game]]'' (1966) was the ancestor of simulation game ''VideoGame/{{Hamurabi}}''. It was more complex, featuring, in addition to a first step featuring the notorious grain-and-land management featured in ''Hamurabi'' along with additional features such as technological innovations, two other steps, each more complex than the previous, where the player had to allocate workers between agriculture and crafts. In addition, projector slides and audio documentations were developed for the game, since it was meant to be played at school. The source code is lost, apart from projector slides and three printouts of individual game sessions; only the description of how the software computed entered values are available; it was how Ahl coded ''Hamurabi''.
40	* The AdvertisementGame ''WD-40 Spray Game'' exclusive to members of the official WD-40 fan club has been lost to time, as little if any mention of it remains online. It was developed by JV Games, a third-rate MediaNotes/{{Shovelware}} house who also developed a version of ''VideoGame/NightFire'' for the Game Boy Advance.
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43	[[folder:Unfinished or Unreleased examples]]
44	* The Commodore 64 based website Games That Weren't investigates lost games, by attempting to find out why they went unreleased and trying to track down any surviving elements. Notable full-game finds included a licensed ''Daffy Duck'' game which scored 94% in Commodore Format but went unreleased when the publishers folded, but many remain lost.
45	* [[WhatCouldHaveBeen The original sequel]] to ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' made by Black Isle, code-named "[[VideoGame/FalloutVanBuren Van Buren]]", which was about 85% done when Black Isle's parent company Interplay went bankrupt and the game was never seen again. ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' was eventually made five years afterwards by Creator/{{Bethesda}}, yet had nothing to do with Van Buren.
46	** Many of Van Buren's story concepts were later used in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', such as Caesar's Legion, the Van Graffs and the Hoover Dam. [[Creator/ObsidianEntertainment The development team for New Vegas]] included many former members of Black Isle.
47	* Similar to the ''Panzer Dragoon Saga'' example (see "Other"), the Platform/GameBoyAdvance version of ''Mega Man Anniversary Collection'' was cancelled because Capcom lost the original code for the original Platform/GameBoy Mega Man games and it proved too expensive to rebuild them.
48	* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
49	** There was a ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' port for the unsuccessful Tiger Electronics Platform/GameCom console that was never released due to the poor performance of the platform .
50	** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'':
51	*** Original plans for the game was for it to be called ''Metal Gear Solid III'', to reinforce the game's censorship/editing of sequences theme (where did the missing ''II'' go?). This was soon abandoned, but early (internal) trailers still refer to it by this name.
52	*** There is a large and expensive chunk of that which was modeled, animated, acted and complete, but cut from the game at the last minute [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents as the 9/11 terror attacks happened towards the end of development]] (the scenes depicted Arsenal Gear laying waste to various New York landmarks). The model of the ruined New York and several of the props and character models used in the sequence can be looked at on the ''Documents of [=MGS2=]'' disc, which also presents the script of the sequence; and the novelisation and comic book adaptations (released in the 2010s) retain this sequence. One cinematic from the sequence (a news report showing the Statue of Liberty's new resting place) was DummiedOut and was found by a mod group spelunking the PC version, but it is missing audio.
53	** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' was planned to feature an additional mission titled "Kingdom of the Flies" that would've resolved a loose plot thread in the main story [[spoiler:namely the whereabouts of Eli and his child mercenaries after they escape from Mother Base by hijacking Sahelanthropus.]] This mission was planned to be introduced to the game as post-launch DLC, but Creator/HideoKojima's departure from Konami resulted in such plans never coming to fruition and instead a video on a video was included on a bonus Blu-ray disc packaged with the limited edition of the game that depict the events of said mission through unfinished cutscenes and concept art.
54	* Several Platform/{{Amiga}} magazines were sent review copies of ''Putty Squad'', and even the hardliners at ''Magazine/AmigaPower'' graded it 91%--but the Amiga port never publicly surfaced beyond a coverdisk demo. Only an Platform/{{SNES}} version was published. The Amiga version was finally released twenty years after initially planned, and for free - you can download it from System 3 on their [[http://www.system3.com/promotional-download/puttysquadamiga/ promotional page]].
55	* The Atari 2600 game ''Saboteur'' was never released (would have been released circa 1980), but it was a selectable game in the Atari Flashback 2, released in 2005.
56	* ''Mire Mare'', the fifth ''VideoGame/SabreMan'' game, was never made, despite being mentioned by name in the ending of ''Underwurlde''.
57	* There was an installment of ''Franchise/SamAndMax'' made called ''Sam & Max: Freelance Police!!''. However, Creator/LucasArts cancelled it and it wouldn't be until another two years before Telltale Games would make a Sam & Max game. Like LSL above, the game is referenced in the Telltale Games series as a "particularly gruesome case".
58	** The gruesomeness (and bitterness) around the [=LucasArts=] sequel is that the game was ''finished and already rated by the ESRB'', before being caught up in the studio's decision to leave the adventure game business entirely.
59	* ''[=SimRefinery=]'', an obscure Maxis sim game made for internal use by Chevron, was thought lost until tech website ''Ars Technica'' [[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/the-sprawling-must-read-history-of-maxis-former-serious-games-division/ wrote an article]] about Maxis' business unit, briefly mentioning that the game was lost. One reader of the article talked to a retired chemical engineering friend and [[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/the-sprawling-must-read-history-of-maxis-former-serious-games-division/?comments=1&post=38913520 was given a floppy]], perhaps the last, of the game.
60	** This one has a happy ending though - WebVideo/LazyGameReviews managed to get that disk, verify that it was indeed ''[=SimRefinery=]'' and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ6Cqn5rTfs film gameplay]], also sharing the disk's contents online for free.
61	* The infamous would-be KillerApp for the Platform/SegaSaturn, ''VideoGame/SonicXtreme'', [[{{Vaporware}} never made it to shelves]] – a result of the game's TroubledProduction, which was riddled to the core with ExecutiveMeddling – taking a near-fatal toll on the remaining programmer's health, due to which the game's development was discontinued shortly afterwards. Some assets – such as character sprites, level assets, and a early prototype of the "Project Condor" boss engine – have been leaked onto the internet, whereas other aspects (such as the original engine used for the game) have not seen release.
62	* ''VideoGame/StarFox2'' was never released, even though the Japanese version was practically completed. The plot would have continued the story from the previous game, and would have introduced Star Wolf as major antagonists. The game was canceled most likely due to the pending release of the Nintendo 64. Shortly after the game's termination, ''VideoGame/StarFox64'' began development, and rebooted the storyline from scratch. Eventually a ROM was leaked to the internet, and an English FanTranslation was released. However, the [=ROMs=] were all earlier builds as Dylan Cuthbert said the leaked [=ROMs=] lack the final few months of QA work and were set up in debug mode. The game was finally released, in its completed form, in 2017 via the SNES Classic Mini, and is one of the thing's major selling points. The game was later released on [[Platform/NintendoSwitch Nintendo Switch Online]].
63	* The fourth game in Creator/{{Atari}}'s ''VideoGame/{{Swordquest}}'' series, ''Airworld'', was never developed, probably due to MediaNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983. One of Parker Brothers' ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' games also never made it past the concept art stage (the other unreleased game, ''Ewok Adventure'', was discovered as a prototype).
64	* The [[UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 excessively violent and knowingly offensive]] ''VideoGame/ThrillKill'' was pulled from distribution before it could offend, likely to avoid fears of a [[MurderSimulators moral outcry]], and because AO-rated games are not allowed on consoles. The game developers were [[CreatorBacklash rightfully annoyed]] by this; leaking a beta version of the game before releasing another fighting game, ''Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style'' using the same game mechanics, albeit marginally toned-down (i.e., LESS bloody and gory).
65	* While it's unknown exactly why the ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' video game ''[[VideoGame/TinyToonAdventuresDefendersOfTheUniverse Defenders of the Universe]]'' by Creator/{{Treasure}} was never released despite being practically completed and getting all the way to having an ESRB rating, box art and retail listings, it is known that the publisher, Conspiracy Entertainment, had major financial troubles at the time that led to them terminating many of their other planned products. The company said that "business complications" were the reason the game was delayed from its planned Spring 2002 release date numerous times all the way up to 2004 before it was eventually cancelled by the game's director. It was not until 2009 that a build of the game leaked.
66	** Another project, ''VideoGame/TinyToonAdventuresBustersBadDream'', was released the same year as ''Defenders of the Universe'' was set to release. While it was widely released in Europe, America only saw a very limited run underneath the name ''Scary Dreams''.
67	* ''Ultima X: Odyssey'': It was canceled just four months after EA shut down Creator/OriginSystems.
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70	[[folder:Mods & Fan-Works]]
71	* ''Franchise/{{Doom}}'':
72	** This trope applies to all versions of ''Freedoom'', a project to make a game with 100% free content using the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' engine, prior to 0.6.4. Before its release, a Doomworld community member [[http://www.doomworld.com/vb/thread/46675 discovered]] that one of composer Sam Woodman's contributions was [[MediaNotes/{{Plagiarism}} plagiarized]] from the 1997 ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' [[GameMod total conversion]] ''The Gate''. 0.6.4 was soon uploaded with all of his music removed due to potential copyright infringement; and because his music was present in ''Freedoom'' for so long, all previous releases were taken offline.
73	** When the ''Doom'' mod ''VideoGame/Grezzo2'' was released, there was speculation about why there seemed to be no "''Grezzo 1''" around, to the assumption that it was a plain troll by the author, or it was an obscure reference to whatsoever; to some, the only logical answer was the fact that the mod was technically based on ''Doom II''. Eventually the author revealed that a "Grezzo 1" actually existed: he made it in 2004 during his high school days. It had the same levels of the original ''Doom'', only with different sounds and sprites for the enemies. It featured many in-jokes understandable only by him and few other people, so he felt it wasn't worth being published online.
74	* Many user-uploaded cities and components such as buildings and maps of past ''VideoGame/SimCity'' games like 2000 and 3000 (the first with an Internet component) have been lost as fan sites compiling those city files for others to play have shut down, bought by larger media companies that didn't care about those archives, or corrupted during site upgrades.
75	* There's actually quite a lot of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' [[GameMod romhacks]] that fall into this. Some examples include anything from before the time SMW Central was hacked, any resources use in the Japanese hacks Ore World 2 and The Mario (since the authors' websites have vanished along with their asm and code), anything from the first VIP 5 uploader (taken down because people used it for things other than VIP 5 submissions), anything from the original Japanese hack hosting/submission site (which vanished without a trace) and "Super Mario World Freedom" since the author's website has been taken down.
76	** The ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' [[GameMod romhack]] ''Notte Luminosa'' was taken down from SMW Central after it was revealed that the creator lied about having terminal cancer, in an attempt to get other people to make LetsPlays of the game. Eventually Subverted, as the patch would make its way to [[http://smwdb.me/db/a/a67800f4f1033cc27b21df2864be47dd8a04fcee/ SMWDB]], a site dedicated to preserving SMW ROM hacks.
77	* Many fan made animals for the ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon'' games have been lost as websites have gone down, such as the [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Umbreon]] mod.
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80	[[folder:Other]]
81	* An interesting case can occur when a speedrunner or other competitive gamer fails to produce a recording of a notable achievement, either through neglect, equipment failure, or simply not having the proper tools. While generally stand-alone videos rather than part of a traditional series, this can create missing episodes in the timeline of a game's competitive history; it becomes noticeable if, for example, attempting to view and study how the world record speedruns of a particular game evolved over time, such as the case of WebVideo/SummoningSalt's world record progression videos. This was much more common in the earlier days of the activity, when there was less organization and socialization built around it, as well the technology being less available. Now that it's fairly trivial for anyone to record and upload footage, someone claiming a new record without proof will usually be taken as a red flag that they're lying.
82	* The ''VideoGame/EyewitnessVirtualReality'' series of educational video games has one of these, if it ever was made. There is an Eyewitness Virtual Reality Shark game referenced to in the others, but no physical copies exist. Not even torrents. It's likely that this one game never was made. There's also evidence that there was an Eyewitness Virtual Reality Jungle game planned as well, but even less is known about it.
83	* Deliberate example: There is no ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry 4'', largely because lead designer Al Lowe couldn't figure out how to logically continue the series from the third game on and chose to [[UnInstallment skip straight to the fifth one.]] Its nonexistence is a major plot point in the fifth game: at the end of the third, Larry finally found the woman of his dreams; at the start of the fifth, they're separated and neither of them actually knows why, leading to Patti trying to find the missing ''Larry 4'' so she can figure out what the heck happened.
84	** Another explanation is that ''Larry 4'' was originally going to be a massively multiplayer online adventure game (in the early nineties!), but development never got off the ground as modem technology was still much too primitive at the time, so in the end the small minigames that were used to beta-test the project's online capabilities were packaged together and sold as ''The Sierra Network''.
85	*** ''Leisure Suit Larry 4'' turns up as a gag in several other Sierra games, but is actually a plot point in ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest 4''. [[spoiler:Vohaul smuggled his consciousness onto a disk of Leisure Suit Larry 4, and the Xenonian scientists are so eager to play it that they load it into the planet-controlling supercomputer.]] When you're in Vohaul's lair later in the game, one of the programs on his computer is "[=LSL4=]."
86	** WordOfGod has it that Al Lowe had intended to end the series with 3 [[http://www.allowe.com/games/larry/inside-stories/is-lsl5-lsl4.html and thus once said that "There's not going to be a Larry 4! I'm stopping with three.".]] [[ExactWords Well... there isn't a 4]], but he didn't stop at 3. Same source says that it suddenly occurred to him at that time that skipping 4 would be a great marketing gimmick. He was right.
87	%%* Another plagiarism scandal saw the game ''VideoGame/LimboOfTheLost'' removed from sale in 2008, less than a year after its release. The game's title was ironic, as it had originally been in development in the early 1990s, initially for the Platform/AtariST. (Incidentally, even the early Atari/Amiga builds of the game have evidence of plagiarism).
88	%%(NOTE: This is more of a Keep Circulating the Tapes example, keeping this commented for posterity's sake. Remove this note when deemed necessary)
89	* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has [[https://lostmediawiki.com/Minecraft_(partially_found_previous_versions_of_sandbox_game;_2009-present) a number of older versions of the game that are missing]], especially during the Classic and Indev development cycles. This was because at the time, ''Minecraft'' was relatively obscure (especially compared to the CashCowFranchise it is today), so there were fewer players available to back them up. Furthermore, updates were released at a ''very'' rapid pace, often multiple times in one day, making it even harder to back all of them up. There are also versions that have been released onto the Minecraft Launcher, but are recompiled from their original source code and thus do not exist in their original forms; this is a known issue for many pre-Classic builds.
90	* The reason why many Sega Saturn classics like ''VideoGame/PanzerDragoon Saga'' and ''VideoGame/ShiningForceIII'' have never been re-released is because Sega lost the original programming code for the games. Same for their System-16 (and then some) arcade games.
91	* In a case of adaptation-induced limitations, ''TabletopGame/SherlockHolmesConsultingDetective'' was translated from its gamebook origins into a trio of CD-ROM InteractiveMovie titles. Each CD includes three cases for a total of nine playable games; the original gamebook had a tenth case, "The Cryptic Corpse", that simply does not exist in FMV format.
92	[[/folder]]
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Context MissingEpisode / Videogames