Telltale’s Strong Bad pulled from Steam as license expires

The first season of Telltale's Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People has been pulled from Steam. On May 30, the developer confirmed it lost the rights to the Homestar Runner series the game is based on. 

"Unfortunately, we can no longer support Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People," wrote Telltale. While the game is no longer purchasable on Windows or Mac OSX, Telltale assured players they can download all the episodes if they'd already bought the game before its delisting. 

And since the game only ever released on the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, console-wise, there's effectively no other way to play the game beyond redownloading it. 

While it's not the first game from Telltale to get delisted, it remains significant regardless. Checking the developer's Steam page, only a dozen titles can be purchased. Only about half of them are works that wouldn't instantly spring to mind upon hearing the studio's name.

Strong Bad's delisting closes another chapter on the old Telltale 

Telltale was first founded in 2004, but the late 00s and early 2010s are often considered its heyday. The increased reputation was thanks to the studio adapting any and everything with brand recognition that it could get its hands on before its closure in 2018. 

Strong Bad's was released in 2008 and was based on Mike and Matt Chapman's popular (and ongoing) webseries, Homestar Runner. The game was one of several titles based on Homestar, which included web games and a licensed board game. 

Beyond big brands such as Batman and Game of Thrones, Telltale also released licensed episodic games based on The Walking Dead (in the early days of the AMC series), Minecraft, and Back to the Future. It even made an episodic game based on NBC's Law & Order. 

Nearly a full year after its closure, Telltale was revived under LCG Entertainment. Its next game is Deck Nine's The Expanse: A Telltale Series in July, followed by the previously canceled The Wolf Among Us 2 in 2024.