Indie publisher Playism is closing its DRM-free store this month

Playism, a division of Active Gaming Media, has been bringing western indie games to Japan and localizing niche Japanese games for the west since 2011. It recently backed games like Fight Crab, Umurangi Generation, and Omori, and in the past brought English versions of games like Kero Blaster (a platformer from the creator of Cave Story), The Silver Case (an early visual novel by Suda 51), and the Touhou series to PC.

While many of Playism's games are available through Steam and GOG, it also maintained its own storefront with DRM-free versions of its games. Though Playism will continue as a publisher, it has announced it will cease selling games directly through its website on March 24.

Additionally, the My Page section for purchased games will be shut down on May 10. If you own any games on Playism, it's recommended that you download copies before then, and if you've bought a game through Playism that came with a Steam key you should activate it before that date.

As Playism explains, "With the termination of the My Page feature, redownloading of previously purchased content and reacquisition of Steam keys will no longer be possible, so please be sure to properly make any necessary purchases and save any purchased content/post-purchase data/etc. as required before the above-listed dates."

There's also a note that fans of Playism's work shouldn't worry about its future, saying, "we want to emphasize the fact that it is ONLY the PLAYISM official website  that will cease the sale of games/content, and that we will continue our game/content distribution on Steam and for home game consoles such as the Nintendo Switch, etc." The FAQ on Playism's site has more information.