The future of digital gaming is not so bright when a publisher suddenly decides that previously available titles are no longer available on platforms like Steam.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) subsidiary Cartoon Network has been affected, with no less than six WBD titles being pulled from Steam. Let’s Play Heroes, Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time (Adult Swim), Steven Universe: Save the Light, Steven Universe: Unleash the Light, Adventure Time: Finn and Jake’s Epic Quest, and Adventure Time: Magic Man’s Head Games are all gone. According to SteamDB, the six games were removed from Gabe Newell’s platform at once the other day, and WBD has reportedly removed the six games from other non-PC platforms as well.

The reasoning on the Steam pages is pretty ridiculous: “Attention players, OK K.O.! Let’s Play Heroes will no longer be available for purchase after December 23, 2024, thanks for playing, Cartoon Network Games”. One of the games was not published by WBD through Cartoon Network Games, but by Adult Swim Games, but since Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time ended up the same way (while Adult Swim Games is owned by Cartoon Network), it’s irrelevant since the games were unavailable either way.

The removal from stores came a few months after WBD shut down the Cartoon Network site and redirected people to the Max site instead, and the removal of Adult Swim published games also happened earlier this year. One big difference is that in those cases, prior notice was given and the rights to at least some of the games were returned to their owners following the outcry, but in the case of the recent removals, there was no prior notice.

In any case, WBD’s reluctance to continue selling niche games is reprehensible. They have enough problems (Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, MultiVersus).

Source: PCGamer