Adult Swim Games titles are being pulled from stores by Warner Bros.
Update (March 8, 2024, 3:35pm CET): Additional developers have come forward and confirmed that Warner Bros. Discovery plans to delist titles published under the Adult Swim Games label. The developer of Soundodger+ said that his request for the game being transferred to his publisher account on Steam has been denied by WBD, though he will be allowed to re-upload the game once it's been delisted in 60 days – with all mentions of Adult Swim Games being purged.
It seems more and more like all games published under the Adult Swim banner will be subject to this policy.
Original (March 7, 2024, 12:25pm CET): Warner Bros. Discovery has begun the process of delisting video games from digital stores that have been published under the Adult Swim Games label, as reported by Game Developer. Adult Swim Games has been inactive for a few years now, but the publisher’s games are still available on platforms like Steam and the PS Store under the label.
However, solo developer Fire Face Corporation, who made the puzzle game Small Radios Big Televisions published by Adult Swim Games, has now been informed that the publisher’s owner, Warner Bros. Discovery, would be “retiring” the game and it would be delisted in 60 days. Fire Face reacted by making the game available for free on their own website.
Small Radios Big Televisions will be delisted from Steam and the PS4 Store in 60 days.
Fire Face Corporation / Adult Swim Games
Speaking to Games Developer, Owen Deery – the man behind Fire Face – called the decision by WBD “depressing,” but said he “can see why they did it.” As reported by the site, which saw the notice sent to Deery, WBD explained the delisting with “internal business changes” without going into much detail.
Since then, another indie developer who had worked with Adult Swim Games in the past got the same notice about their title, Fist Puncher. Matt Kain Lewandowski, one half of the brother duo making up Team2Bit, wrote in a forum post that WBD declined to transfer ownership of the title’s Steam page to their own publisher account so the game could stay visible on the store.
“This is incredibly disappointing,” he stated. “It seems like more and more the videogame industry is filled with people that don't like and don't care about videogames. All that to say, buy physical games, make back-ups, help preserve our awesome industry and art form.”
It seems likely that other Adult Swim Games-published titles will suffer the same fate, although no additional developers have come forward with similar announcements yet.
Warner Bros. Discovery published the best-selling game of 2023 with Hogwarts Legacy as well as one of 2024’s biggest flops so far in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. This setback had one executive describe the video game industry as “volatile” and call for a strategy change.
