Stardock Entertainment got hit hard when their latest game, Star Control: Origins, got knocked off of digital distribution outlets due to a DMCA takedown notice filed by the original creators of the first two Star Control games. The DMCA notice was part of an ongoing court case involving the copyright of the Star Control property, and sadly a lot of gamers and innocent consumers had to pay the price for the legal fallout that they had nothing to do with.

The game was originally removed from Steam and GOG at the beginning of January, much to the surprise of gamers. There was originally no ETA on when it would come back, but Stardock CEO, Brad Wardell, mentioned that they would work as quickly as possible in getting the game back on the digital distribution services.

Well, the game is now back and live on Steam as of January 17th, 2019. According to Wardell, he stated…

“Stardock is happy to report that Star Control: Origins has been restored for sale on Steam.”

You can pick up a digital copy from the Steam store for $39.99.

During the downtime Wardell had mentioned that they would have to lay off some of the people working on the game to compensate for the loss of sales while the game was being pulled off of distribution services. I’m curious if this means the staff will come back to work on more DLC or will they wait for the case to resolve itself in court before getting back to work on new content for Star Control: Origins?

During the time while the game was off of Steam and GOG there was a sale for the game on the official Stardock store page where they had the game available at a discounted price.

These kind of situations can definitely disrupt the way a business operates, and in the end it doesn’t really help anyone given that the company has a form of revenue cut off while customers no longer have an option to acquire the game.

At least in this case Star Control: Origins is back on Steam, so for those of you wanted to get your hands on the game you can do so right now.