Warner Bros. Discovery is telling developers it plans to start “retiring” games published by its Adult Swim Games label, game makers who worked with the publisher tell Polygon. At least three games are under threat of being removed from Steam and other digital stores, with the fate of other games published by Adult Swim unclear.
The media conglomerate’s planned removal of those games echoes cuts from its film and television business; Warner Bros. Discovery infamously scrapped plans to release nearly complete movies Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme, and removed multiple series from its streaming services. If Warner Bros. does go through with plans to delist Adult Swim’s games from Steam and digital console stores, 18 or more games could be affected.
News of the Warner Bros. plan to potentially pull Adult Swim’s games from Steam and the PlayStation Store was first reported by developer Owen Reedy, who released puzzle-adventure game Small Radios Big Televisions through the label in 2016. Reedy said on X Tuesday the game was being “retired” by Adult Swim Games’ owner. He responded to the company’s decision by making the Windows PC version of Small Radios Big Televisions available to download for free from his studio’s website.
I don’t think any games have been completely removed from Steam. In cases like this, they stop new purchases, but anyone who already has it keeps it.
This comment seems to imply that at least some titles won’t function after the delisting, perhaps related to servers, perhaps not.
AFAIK none of my steam games are only accessible through steam servers. All of my games are installed on-site in my HDD and I really don’t think Steam can uninstall them without my knowledge or consent. E.g. I can play any one of my games without an internet connection.
Any game that uses Steamworks or other DRM will not be playable offline (without first putting Steam into offline mode, for Steamworks games, maybe others).