Delisted Games, citing various developer, is reporting that the Adult Swim Games subsidiary of Warner Bros. is ceasing operations and will be delisting games currently published by them within the next 60 days.
Delisted Games are speculating that this will affect all games under the label and are reporting that WB is refusing to work with affected developers. Matt Kain Lewandowski, one of the developers of 2013’s Fist Puncher, has stated on Steam Discussions, “So far they have said no 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. No, the transfer process is not complicated. It likely takes about 2 minutes on their end”
Matt also says that the games “will presumably be removed from users’ libraries,” but that isn’t how it’s worked in the past, so I’d be extremely surprised if this was accurate.
Owen Deery, creator of Small Radios Big Televisions, says that WB controls the sale price, so he can’t mark his game down before its delisting. Instead, he has made the game available for free on the developer’s website.
According to the developers, they have been told that the delistings are due to “business changes.” It should be noted that Adult Swim Games hasn’t really been active since at least 2020. However, in their time, they published games such as Double Fine’s Headlander, Duck Game, and Super House of Dead Ninjas. Other games like Rainworld and Jazzpunk have had the publishing rights returned to the developer. Unfortunately, for any developer who didn’t move away from Adult Swim, it seems like it will be difficult to save the listing.
WB has been in headlines a lot recently for its anti-creative moves. Not long ago, there was an outcry against the company’s decision to shelve the reportedly complete film Coyote vs. Acme for tax purposes. In recent video game industry news, they made the baffling decision to double-down on live service games despite the relative failure of Suicide Squad. They also recently announced the decision to shutter online video producer Rooster Teeth.
I’m at a bit of a loss for words right now. I already considered WB to be one of the worst publishers, not just in terms of quality but also for game preservation due to their unwillingness to re-release much of the back catalog of Midway/Williams/Atari Games. I never predicted how much worse it would get. In the early ‘10s when they started publishing alternative games, it seemed like they were on track to be competition for Devolver Digital in terms of quirky small-budget style. But I suppose yesterday’s optimism sometimes becomes the devil’s pants.
In the meantime, if you are interested in any of Adult Swim Games’ back catalog on Steam, you might want to act now. As mentioned, WB is in control of any discounts, and they don’t seem interested in hosting a last-chance sale. Some developers will be able to make their games available elsewhere or perhaps find a way to relist themselves, but nothing is guaranteed.
