Fist Puncher to be retired by Warner Bros.

[TheRealMattKain]

Hi all! This is Matt, one of the original developers of Fist Puncher. It saddens me to announce that we received notice from Warner Bros. Discovery (the owners of Adult Swim Games) that Fist Puncher will be retired and removed from Steam in the next 60 days.

We've asked that Warner Bros. simply transfer the game to our Steam publisher account so that it can stay active, but so far they have said no with the reason being that they made the universal decision not to transfer the games back to the original studios and do not have the resources to do so. No, the transfer process is not complicated. It likely takes about 2 minutes on their end:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/managing_apps/transfer

This is incredibly disappointing. I'm not entirely sure what will even happen if the game gets delisted, but it makes me sick to think that purchased games will presumably be removed from users' libraries. Our community and our players have 10+ years of discussions, screenshots, gameplay footage, leaderboards, player progress, unlocked characters, Steam achievements, Steam cards, etc. which could all be lost. We have Kickstarter backers who helped fund Fist Puncher (even some who have cameo appearances in the game) who will eventually no longer be able to play it.

That said, let's focus on some positives! I want to thank EVERYONE who bought or played this game. You are all awesome and helped us bring our dream game to life. I played through the entire game during the pandemic, and there were some silly and outrageous moments that I had forgotten about that brought a smile to my face. If you unlocked all the characters, then you are a true hero. If you found ALL the items, then you are something even crazier... I don't have words, but your devotion to this game is epic. If you ever posted a screenshot, beat a level, left a review, or even logged a minute on this game, you RULE! Thank you SO much! For anyone who ever reached out or met me at a show (CAX, GDC, PAX, IndieCade, etc.), don't be a stranger. My DMs are always open. I love videogames and videogame history, and I'm always open to chat!

And, I feel this needs to be said somewhere... but... Videogames are art. Videogames connect us. Videogames are important. Videogames are part of our cultural heritage and should be preserved.

We will continue to press Warner Bros. to transfer Fist Puncher back to us. If you have any fun stories about Fist Puncher (or even not so fun stories), please post them below. Wish us luck, please share this message, and THANK YOU!

Onward!
Matt and Jake (Team2Bit)

[TheRealMattKain]

Originally posted by Hakuso:

So...
Does this affect the GOG customers as well?

I don't *think* Adult Swim published anything on GOG so it will not affect GOG customers. Fist Puncher and Volgarr are both self-published on GOG so none of this WB BS affects us there. But realistically Steam is where we all have the most customers, the biggest communities, etc. So losing Steam is a big deal for many of us who are still invested in our games.

[shade00]

Originally posted by TheRealMattKain:

Originally posted by shade00:

WB is shutting down adult swim publishing
that means every game every platform

True, but many of us ONLY signed publishing deals for specific platforms. Adult Swim published Fist Puncher on Steam, but we self-published on GOG and Humble. Each contract is likely a little different, but Adult Swim's big push back in the day was to create a cool, curated collection of games for Steam. They were less interested in other platforms. But, yes, if a game is published by Adult Swim on some specific platform, then it is likely in danger of being removed.

aha well gog is its own platform
humblle sells keys to the steam platform

thank you for the information, which means gog versions should be fine

https://www.gog.com/en/games?publishers=adult-swim
kingsway
headlander
westerado

checked and a couple devs published with them on gog those are at risk

[TheRealMattKain]

Quick update. We haven't heard anything new from WB who is simply choosing to no longer respond to questions or requests to transfer the game back to us. In the meantime, we now have the Fist Puncher dev and build environment working again (took some time since this is an XNA game!) and are tentatively preparing to self-publish and relaunch Fist Puncher.

[shade00]

Originally posted by TheRealMattKain:

Quick update. We haven't heard anything new from WB who is simply choosing to no longer respond to questions or requests to transfer the game back to us. In the meantime, we now have the Fist Puncher dev and build environment working again (took some time since this is an XNA game!) and are tentatively preparing to self-publish and relaunch Fist Puncher.

now that is awesome news
cant believe WB has done so many wrong in such a short amount of time
an empire being torn apart for what tax breaks....?

[wasabi™]

Originally posted by TheRealMattKain:

Quick update. We haven't heard anything new from WB who is simply choosing to no longer respond to questions or requests to transfer the game back to us. In the meantime, we now have the Fist Puncher dev and build environment working again (took some time since this is an XNA game!) and are tentatively preparing to self-publish and relaunch Fist Puncher.

Fantastic news guys, must have taken a lot of work but I'm so glad to hear that FIst Puncher will live on and be protected from anything like this happening again with the new version.

[Luna ~]

Originally posted by TheRealMattKain:

Quick update. We haven't heard anything new from WB who is simply choosing to no longer respond to questions or requests to transfer the game back to us. In the meantime, we now have the Fist Puncher dev and build environment working again (took some time since this is an XNA game!) and are tentatively preparing to self-publish and relaunch Fist Puncher.

yeah you might have to re publish everything removing everything from Adult swim I know cloudbuilt had a similar problem and eventually go relisted and solved

[Steel Wing]

Originally posted by TheRealMattKain:

Quick update. We haven't heard anything new from WB who is simply choosing to no longer respond to questions or requests to transfer the game back to us. In the meantime, we now have the Fist Puncher dev and build environment working again (took some time since this is an XNA game!) and are tentatively preparing to self-publish and relaunch Fist Puncher.

If your game was stock XNA 4.0 I would highly recommend shipping it with FNA in this year 2024 even on Windows.

Better compatibility in all respects (has DX11 renderer among others), built for cross platform, uses SDL_GameController under the hood for controllers so it supports basically all controllers seamlessly. Also possibly likely to survive the heat death of the universe (can just update the FNA binaries themselves to get updates usually). Not too hard to get Switch/Xbox ports going from an FNA base as well. Recently they also got the newer .NET officially supported as a workflow (optionally).

[The Asgorian Bugsong]

https://twitter.com/owendeery/status/1788570770232300021

Seems like Warner bros is finally starting to relent? Small Radios Big Television is getting rights reverted back to their dev.

[Tourettes Guy]

Wow! Very sad to hear this news. Haven't played in a long time, but when I had friends over, it was almost guaranteed Fist Puncher would be played.
Wishing you well in new endeavors

[The Asgorian Bugsong]

Originally posted by The Asgorian Bugsong:

https://twitter.com/owendeery/status/1788570770232300021

Seems like Warner bros is finally starting to relent? Small Radios Big Television is getting rights reverted back to their dev.

https://twitter.com/superjoebob/status/1788727928143872455
Update, same for Duck Game too.

Also saw the Rise & Shine devs also got the email too.

[TheRealMattKain]

For anyone wondering, yes, we got the rights to Fist Puncher back! We are waiting for all of the paperwork and actual hand-over to happen before making a formal post and announcement. We can't say too much about details due to the NDA, but we have a bunch to report about what will happen moving forward! Stay tuned! And thanks to everyone that posted in support of us and other indie developers!

[The Asgorian Bugsong]

https://x.com/Wario64/status/1808260023291670728

Seems like these 4 games are confirmed to be going by July 15th. Though I think bitmap beauru might still wanna reclaim ownership of super house of dead ninjas.

Might be worth helping them get in touch if possible.

[comp9]

This is great news! Looking forward to hearing about what will happen moving forward (the parts that can be told about)

Originally posted by TheRealMattKain:

For anyone wondering, yes, we got the rights to Fist Puncher back! We are waiting for all of the paperwork and actual hand-over to happen before making a formal post and announcement. We can't say too much about details due to the NDA, but we have a bunch to report about what will happen moving forward! Stay tuned! And thanks to everyone that posted in support of us and other indie developers!

[The Asgorian Bugsong]

Originally posted by TheRealMattKain:

For anyone wondering, yes, we got the rights to Fist Puncher back! We are waiting for all of the paperwork and actual hand-over to happen before making a formal post and announcement. We can't say too much about details due to the NDA, but we have a bunch to report about what will happen moving forward! Stay tuned! And thanks to everyone that posted in support of us and other indie developers!

What about the versions on GOG? Why is that version of the game going down?

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/delisting_4_games_from_adult_swim

[katsuragi]

Am I right in assuming this was resolved since I still have this in my library, can download, the store page still exists, and it is still for sale?