Developers of games published by Adult Swim Games are being told by the publisher's parent company Warner Bros that their games will be delisted from digital storefronts soon.
As confirmed by Delisted Games, the developers of titles like Fist Puncher, Small Radios Big Televisions, and Soundodger+ are being contacted by Warner Bros and told that within 60 days, their games will be removed from sale.
It's not clear whether or not Warner Bros intends to allow players who have already bought these titles to redownload them, but it looks like you won't be able to buy Adult Swim Games titles after the next two months have gone by.
In a post on the official Fist Puncher Steam discussion forums, developer Matt Kain says his team has asked Warner Bros to transfer publishing rights to them, but Warner Bros has refused.
Kain says the company's rationale is that it "made the universal decision not to transfer the games back to the original studios" and that the publisher "do[es] not have the resources to do so".
Similarly, Owen Deery, developer of Small Radios Big Televisions, was told (thanks, Game Developer) that "business changes" were the reason for his game being delisted and that he and his studio Fire Face weren't able to get the rights to their game either.
In theory, it should be possible for many of the developers of these titles to re-upload their games in a new form, as Soundodger+ developer Studio Bean intends to do (and as Fire Face has done for Small Radios Big Televisions).
However, this does mean that all of the reviews, community posts, and guides for current Steam versions of these games will be deleted, and that's obviously not ideal for visibility or accessibility.
Outside of the rather nebulous "business changes", Warner Bros doesn't seem to have given these developers a concrete reason for its decision to delist Adult Swim Games titles.
The publisher did recently admit, however, that live-service shooter Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a disappointment and that mobile and live-service games are big targets for the company going forward.
We'll have to wait and see if the remaining Adult Swim Games titles are also delisted in future. Do note that many games previously under the Adult Swim Games umbrella, including titles like Death's Gambit and Rain World, are no longer published by the company, so they should be safe. Stay tuned for more.
