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Warner Bros. is now erasing games as it plans to delist Adult Swim-published titles (www.polygon.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 8 months ago (13 children)

I honestly don't understand the math of not releasing movies and un-releasing games. People say tax purposes but I'd think streaming is essentially pure profit, hard to imagine not being able to make 20% of your money back or whatever credit you get for taxes.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Think of it like Russian nesting dolls.

You got the production company that pays $100 million to make a movie. The production company is owned by a studio. Production company licenses the movie to the studio that owns it for $200 million. But it’s all the same ownership and no money changed hands. It’s just on paper. So now the $100 million movie cost $200 million. Then the studio licenses out the movie to the marketing company, which the studio also owns, for $300 million. Again no money changed hands and the value is all on paper.

Do that a couple more times and that’s how a movie that literally cost $100 million and made $500 million at the box office “barely broke even”.

Might be off on the layers, but I heard that description of movie accounting years ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's also how the studios fuck over anyone involved who had "profit share %" in their contract.

The marketing costs eat up 100% of the profits, movie makes no money, yet the marketing company the advertising was sold to made half a bill...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Exactly. I left that part off since I thought it was already a long description. But completely true. Can’t pay out an actor that takes a percentage if it never made any money on the “official” paper.

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