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Warner Bros. leave developers feeling “sick and dizzy” as more Adult Swim games are being delistedOnly “fair to transfer no one’s games since they can’t do them all”
Only “fair to transfer no one’s games since they can’t do them all”
Image credit:Ostrich Banditos
Image credit:Ostrich Banditos
Matt Kain, one of the developers of Fist Puncher, confirmed that Warner Bros. weredelisting the game in an update on Steam.
“We’ve asked that Warner Bros. simply transfer the game to our Steam publisher account so that it can stay active, but 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.”
Studio Bean confirmed that the Soundodger+ would be delisted in the next 60 days. “I sent [Warner Bros.] the Steam Transfer link, explained that it takes 3 clicks, and they still refused, claiming it would only be fair to transfer no one’s games since they can’t do them all,” the developertweeted.
“They are allowing me to republish to Steam (with 0 reviews and 0 wishlists), as long as I remove any and all mention of Adult Swim in the game, including team members in the credits,” he added. “I’m all for games preservation, and this ain’t it chief.”
Soundodger+ will apparently remain available via Itch.
Landon Podbielski, creator of Duck Game, tweetedthat he hadn’t heard anything yetbut that he felt “sick and dizzy” at the prospect.
Podbielski laterthanked people for their support, but asked that they not rush to buy the game as the delisting wasn’t confirmed “and in any case I’m not going to let it kill duck game. I own the rights and still plan to update the game no matter what.”
Double Fine’s Lee Petty, director on Adult Swim-published metroidvaniaHeadlander, wrote onXitter that, “Delisting things from a digital storefront is just plain terrible. It bums me out that it could happen to Headlander, but think of the impact it has on small developers. This could really mess up their livelihoods.”
Mr. Podunkian, who is currently working on Stardew-likeSunkissed City, confirmed thathe has not been contacted yet.
“I haven’t been reached out to about anything. WASTED is a little tricky because of music licensing, but if I do get any correspondence, I might as well spend a few weeks to put out a source-port of ESCAPE FROM PUPPY DEATH FACTORY for free somewhere,” he wrote
Likewise, John Gottschalk, designer of Westerados: Double Barrelled at Ostrich Banditos,responded to tweetsabout the delisting to say that “it sucks to learn your game is going offline like this”
“We’re trying to get it transferred from Warner, but we’ll have to see what’s possible. Anyone with games IP & publishing rights experience in the Netherlands, who has any tips, get in touch!”
There are many other games that are at possible risk, however, including Desync, Kingsway, Mega Coin Squad, Obllitus, Pool Panic, Rick And Morty: Virtual Rick-ality, Rise & Shine, Super House Of Dead Ninjas, Super Puzzle Platformer, Traverser, and Zenzizenzic. Some developers of these games have publicly confirmed that they have not yet been contacted, but many more are long-defunct, with shuttered official websites and social media accounts that have not been updated in years.
None of these developers chose to work with Warner Bros. Discovery - their publishing contracts have been hoovered up as one corporate behemoth swallowed or merged with another - but given the option, why would any creative ever work with Warner Bros. ever again, given they seem to be deleting their work across games, film and television?
