Warner Bros., the parent company of the now-defunct Adult Swim Games publishing label, has recently reached out to several developers regarding the return of ownership of their game’s Steam pages. This comes as a surprising turn of events, considering Warner Bros.’s initial decision back in March to delist all Adult Swim Games. The news was shared by developers of popular games such as Small Radios Big Televisions and Duck Game.
Landon Podbielski, the developer of Duck Game, took to social media to share the good news with fans, expressing his relief by stating, “Duck Game is safe!!”. He further mentioned that Warner Bros. had reached out to return the game to his studio along with its store pages on all platforms. Similarly, Owen Deery, the developer of Small Radios Big Television, had previously made his game free to download in anticipation of its removal from sale. However, he was pleased to announce that ownership and store listings would be returned to him.
Super Mega Team, the developers of Rise & Shine, also confirmed that they had received communication from Warner Bros. regarding the return of their game. On the other hand, Matt Kain, the developer of Fist Puncher, was initially told by Warner Bros. that they would not be transferring the games back to the original studios due to resource constraints. Studio Bean, the creator of Soundodger+, received a similar response, indicating that no games would be transferred back.
Adult Swim Games, established in 2005, went through a restructuring by its parent company in late 2020, leading to its closure. The publisher had released popular titles such as Robot Unicorn Attack, Jazzpunk, and Headlander. While Adult Swim Games did not retain intellectual property rights to the games they published, they did control the Steam store pages. The potential delisting of these pages could have erased years of Steam reviews, requiring developers to rebuild their presence from scratch in the marketplace.
Transferring ownership of a Steam store page is a relatively simple process that can be done in a few clicks. However, in cases where developers are no longer active, there is a chance that some games may not return to Steam at all, posing a risk to their availability. It remains to be seen how this decision by Warner Bros. will impact the gaming community and whether more developers will come forward with similar stories of being contacted for the return of their games’ ownership.
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