Both the creative director and the publisher emphasize that they’ve taken steps to ensure this. However, for some reason, we can’t help but be skeptical.
Ever since a study suggested that approximately 87% of games require a physical copy, a pirated version from warez, or an archive to play, we no longer pretend to be surprised when a game is removed from the store. Games containing licensed characters or music have a particularly hard time staying on digital store shelves. Since the beginning of the year, Star Trek: Resurgence and 29 Disney games have disappeared from the lineup.
We were worried that Mixtape, the narrative adventure game that launched earlier this month and became the target of every possible review (opinions on it are extremely divided, to say the least), would meet a similar fate due to the licensed songs in its soundtrack. However, the developers anticipated this possibility. In an interview with Kotaku, the game’s creative director, Johnny Galvatron, said that the developer, Beethoven and Dinosaur, paid an extra fee to ensure that Mixtape’s licenses remain valid indefinitely.
We heard some people say MIXTAPE would be delisted due to music licenses expiring.
That was a lie.
Have a great weekend, everyone. https://t.co/C3VesfWPpz
— Annapurna Interactive (@A_i) May 16, 2026
The publisher, Annapurna Interactive, reiterated this point on Twitter. In a tweet, the company wrote that they had heard rumors suggesting Mixtape would be removed from the list due to an expired music license. They explicitly stated this was a lie before wishing everyone a pleasant weekend. Of course, games are removed from the list for various reasons, and this doesn’t protect the game against all of them, but at the very least, it shouldn’t be up to Stan Bush’s legal team to decide whether to deny renewal of the rights to “The Touch.”
This is an impressive achievement, considering Mixtape features more than two dozen licensed songs, some of which are major hits. Examples include Iggy Pop’s “Candy” and Devo’s “That’s Good.” However, you never know when the situation might change. That’s when game preservation becomes very important. Besides, neither Dance Dance Revolution nor Just Dance has permanent music licenses – why would Mixtape be the exception?
