Hogwarts Legacy publisher kills game, developer makes it free in response

Warner Bros, the publisher of Hogwarts Legacy, has delisted an indie game from Steam and the PlayStation store, so the developer has made it free-to-play.

The game is called Small Radios Big Televisions, created by one person, indie developer Owen Deery, about travelling to various worlds through cassette tapes. As the player jumps from world to world discovering their secrets, new powers and methods of travelling the cassette-verse are unlocked.

Take a look at Small Radios Big Televisions below

While not a big game by any means, it certainly has its fans and performed well on the Steam and PlayStation digital stores.

Unfortunately, the game will vanish from both online platforms in the coming weeks, as the Hogwarts Legacy publisher has made the decision to delist it, and there’s nothing Deery can do about it.

Deery made a Twitter post announcing the delisting, saying Warner Bros “informed me they will be 'retiring' my game Small Radios Big Televisions from both Steam and PS4 stores.”

Given the contract Deery signed when having the Small Radios Big Televisions published, they’re unable to resell the game without risking legal action from Warner Bros. In response Deery said they’ve now “made it free to download” and thanked fans for their support for the game. It’s unknown whether this action is a breach of the contract.

Fans are, as you’d expect, outraged with Warner Bros, especially since the game industry has been plagued by mass-layoffs in the past few weeks, affecting staff members at several huge companies like EA, Sony, and obviously Warner Bros.

At the time of writing, Small Radios Big Televisions is still available on the Steam and PlayStation store, and Deery has confirmed he’ll still receive royalties whenever the game is sold. So if you’re yet to buy and copy and want to before it becomes lost-media, you haven’t got long to do so as the game will be gone in the coming weeks.