Warner Bros. Discovery is seemingly planning to retire some or all games under the Adult Swim Games publishing label, as recently revealed by impacted developers. Small Radios Big Televisions developer Owen Deery first shared on Twitter / X that Warner Bros. Discovery had contacted him to inform of an upcoming “retiring” for his game, on both Steam and the PlayStation Store.
Subsequently, a number of other developers shared similar messages, indicating wider change at Adult Swim Games. In an update on Steam, the team behind Fist Puncher shared their own notice, confirming Warner Bros. Discovery will retire and remove their game within the next 60 days.
While they requested a publisher transfer, Warner Bros. Discovery allegedly denied this request. In lieu of a transfer, all developers will have their Steam pages removed. That means their community discussions, blog posts, achievements, and more will be lost.
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“Our community and our players have 10+ years of discussions, screenshots, gameplay footage, leaderboards, player progress, unlocked characters, Steam achievements, Steam cards, etc. which could all be lost,” Matt Kain, developer on Fist Puncher said.
“I feel this needs to be said somewhere… but… Videogames are art. Videogames connect us. Videogames are important. Videogames are part of our cultural heritage and should be preserved.”
Per reporting from Rock Paper Shotgun, some developers have been informed they are able to re-republish their games to Steam, as long as all credit and mention of Adult Swim on the listing and within the game is removed. But as Kain says, the removal and delisting of the games on Steam will still erase whole parts of their history and fandom.
For now, it appears Warner Bros. Discovery has not made official comment on its move, and it’s unclear whether the Adult Swim Games publishing label is being shut down entirely. We’ll likely learn more about its fate in the coming weeks, particularly given the 60 day deadline delivered for the incoming game delistings.
