Warner Bros. May Delist Over 20 Adult Swim Games From Digital Stores

Rahul Majumdar
·4 min read
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A lot of games published by Adult Swim Games are on the verge of getting delisted from digital storefronts like Steam. Warner Bros., the parent company that owns the now defunct Adult Swim Games, has begun notifying developers of certain ASG-published titles that their games will be removed from stores "within 60 days".

News of the purge started when Fire Face Corporation, the solo developer of Small Radios Big Television, was informed about their game getting 'retired' from Steam. The developer has since started to distribute it for free on their website. Owen Deery, the man behind Fire Face Corporation, talked more about the experience in an email to Game Developer.

"The email wasn't so much a discussion about retiring the game, it was a legal notice," said Deery. "In terms of how it has affected me: it's kind of depressing, I'm very proud of the game, but I can see why they did it. Adult Swim Games hasn't really been a thing for many years now and everyone I worked with at the publisher has long since moved on to other places. When you're working with purely digital products nothing is going to stay around for very long."

In the email, as procured by Game Developer, Warner Bros. lists the reason for the game's deletion as "internal business changes", with no other explanation given.

The same story goes for other developers, such as Team2Bit and Studio Bean, who were sent the same notice from WB. Their games, Fist Puncher and Soundodger+ will be removed from digital storefronts within 60 days. Michael Molinari, the man behind Studio Bean, explained in a social media post that his request to have the game's ownership transferred was declined. However, the developer will be allowed to republish the game so long as any mentions of Adult Swim Games are removed from the listing as well as the game's credits.

Matt Kain, one of the developers at Team2Bit, explained in a Steam forum post that WB chose to not transfer over the ownership of the game to their Steam publisher account. WB declined the request, justifying it with the reason being that "they made the universal decision not to transfer the games back to the original studios and do not have the resources to do so."

"This is incredibly disappointing. I'm not entirely sure what will even happen if the game gets delisted, but it makes me sick to think that purchased games will presumably be removed from users' libraries," said Kain in his forum post.

At the time of writing, no other developers have come forward with similar statements. With the games getting delisted by May, we expect more developers to speak up about the issue soon. The news comes at an unfortunate time considering WB Games' decision to move forward with making more live-service games, a decision that is at odds with the success of Hogwarts Legacy, a single-player title. WB Games seems to be on the same path as its film division, which has started to become notorious for deleting completed works (Coyote vs. Acme, Batgirl).

Here are all the games published by Adult Swim Games that may be getting delisted:

  • DESYNC

  • Duck Game

  • Fist Puncher

  • Headlander

  • Kingsway

  • Mega Coin Squad

  • Major Mayhem (Mobile)

  • Oblitus

  • Pool Panic

  • Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality

  • Rick and Morty: Pocket Mortys (Mobile)

  • Rise & Shine

  • Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time

  • Small Radios Big Televisions

  • Soundodger+

  • Super House of Dead Ninjas

  • Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe

  • Traverser

  • WASTED

  • Westerado: Double Barreled

  • Zenzizenzic

It remains to be seen whether all the games on the list are affected by Warner Bros' decision.