Yesterday we reported how the first three Fallout games (that's Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout: Tactics) had been removed from Good Old Games because of a change in rights ownership. As 2013 came to a close, Interplay was forced to hand over all rights to Bethesda, so without a licensing deal, GoG had to drop the games.
At the time we reported that Steam still had the games listed, suggesting Valve had worked out a deal with Bethesda, however that's not the case. While the games can still be found on Steam, they aren't buyable in any capacity and you can't download them - though presumably you can if you've already bought them in the past, as is the case with GoG.
Unsurprisingly, since it's losing money by not having them there, Bethesda has announced that it is working on striking a new deal with Valve to get the games back on Steam as soon as possible.
Announced via the company's official Twitter account, it said: "We’re working to return classic @Fallout games (1, 2, Tactics) to Steam and will provide an update when they’re ready to go."
No such announcement has been made for GoG though and it doesn't seem likely to happen either, since Bethesda has never struck a deal with the DRM-free distributor, despite its extensive back catalogue of older games.
It seems likely then that Bethesda will continue to deal with Steam alone, which seems like a move that can only harm it in the long run, even if it does put a (very) minor speedbump in the way of crackers and NO/CD patchers.
