Warner Bros Discovery De-listing Adult Swim Video Games

The tax-cutting hacksaw of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has cut through the jungle of film and is now heading straight for video games, as indie game developers are being told that their Adult Swim video games will be delisted from Steam and console stores.

Polygon broke the news as three separate developers informed them that WBD had let them know that their games published under the Adult Swim Games label would be “retired” from digital storefronts. It is very unclear, even to the game developers, what this warning means or how many games under the Adult Swim label this could affect. The three games confirmed to have received the retirement warning are Owen Reedy’s Small Radios Big Television, Michael Molinari’s Soundodger+, and Team2Bit’s Fist Puncher. If WBD is indeed removing all Adult Swim Games on digital platforms it could impact up to 18 games and leave their developers with limited options.

The company seems to be a bit more lenient with what they’ll allow the developers to do with their games than they are with some of the films they’ve shelved, which will never see the light of day. Molinari says that the studio gave him the option to relist the game (thus whipping out all reviews and wishlists for it) or to edit the game so the mention of Adult Swim and its entire staff is removed from it. WBD will not transfer Steam ownership of the games over to publishers, despite how easy it is, saying their refusal “stems from logistical and resource constraints” and “the limited capacity of our team.” That led Reedy, who first shared the news on Tuesday abut the delisting, to put his game up for free.

“We requested that they transfer Fist Puncher back to our studio,” Matt Lewandowski, co-owner of studio Team2Bit. “Their response was that they ‘cannot transfer the game’ due to the fact that they ‘made the decision not to transfer ownership due to logistical and resource constraints.’”

For those indie publishers that own their IP they have some control but for any games that are going to be retired that are under WBD control then a developer has no way out and will probably see their game removed completely and erased. This, of course, has echos of what the company is doing on the film side as it cuts costs and looks for takes breaks in the most ruthless manner possible. The studio already shelved completed films like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme and removed a plethora of content off of streaming. None of it will ever be seen again and all because it offers WBD tax breaks if they don’t profit from the content.

Warner Bros. Discovery has made no comment about the impending removals though a developer has claimed that Adult Swim Games is down to a skeleton crew, hinting it won’t be around much longer.