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

submitted 9 months ago by Ninjazzon@infosec.pub to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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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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[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 8 points 9 months ago

You can make copies of physical media. Disk imaging isn't some archaic sorcery lost to time, you know.

[-] SkyeStarfall 5 points 9 months ago

Well, you can make copies of digital media too.

Sure, there's DRM, but it doesn't matter whether it's digital or physical in that instance, DRM can be added either way.

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 2 points 9 months ago

It is far easier to make an iso work than to crack a compiled program open and edit out its securities, and anybody who says otherwise has no idea what they're talking about.

[-] SkyeStarfall 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Why do you think a game on a physical disk won't have securities?

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Because it in its entirety can be run with a disk reader and associated hardware. At most it might ask for a license code, but otherwise any physical game or video that needs online connection via a proprietary app is just a digital good with extra steps.

[-] SkyeStarfall 4 points 9 months ago

So the issue is about having DRM, not whether it's sold on physical media or not. Digital games don't necessarily need to have DRM either.

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 2 points 9 months ago

How's this for digital rights management: Warner Bros is erasing games from online retailers entirely. Which they cannot do with physical media.

You must have forgotten where you even were.

[-] SkyeStarfall 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

And if you have the game downloaded, you still have the files. Just as much as you have a disk.

On the other hand, disks stop being produced far sooner than digital games stop being sold/hosted.

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 2 points 9 months ago

If you download the game through a client or other proprietary software then in all likelyhood it does not function without that client. Meaning you don't have the game. You have a fragment of the game.