Warner to Start Selling Off its Gaming Division
Last year Warner had an unexpected mega-hit with Hogwarts Legacy. The fact is that this year it probably would have bombed because of Sweet Baby Inc.’s involvement. It’s hilariously ironic that a game as Woke as Hogwarts Legacy blew the doors off because gamers and Hary Potter fans wanted to give the Death to JK crowd the middle finger and were willing to plunk down quite a few bucks to do it.
This year Warner Brothers luck ran out with Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League. A much worse Woke fest that infuriated the already hostile DC fanbase. The DLC with Mrs Freeze did absolutely nothing to repair relations with the fanbase that was enraged by Kevin Conroy’s last outing as Batman had him being humiliated by Harley Quinn.
Suicide Kills the Justice League has lost 98% of its player base, which is a serious problem for something that was meant to be a live service game. The games division is down 41% this year. The only reason it hasn’t hurt Warner Brothers more than that is that Suicide Squad had terrible sales to begin with.
From That Park Place:
A report claims that Warner Bros. Discovery is allegedly looking to sell a “stake” in its video game business, which includes Mortal Kombat developer NetherRealm, Hogwarts Legacy developer Avalanche Software, and Batman: Arkham City developer Rocksteady among others.
This latest report comes from Anna Nicolaou and James Fontanella-Khan at Financial Times on August 6, 2024.
The duo report that CEO David “Zaslav and [CFO Gunnar] Wiedenfels are instead looking to offload smaller assets. They are considering offers to sell Polish broadcaster TVN or a stake in Warner’s video games business, which holds valuable intellectual property to Harry Potter games, said people familiar with the matter.”
During the last earnings call both the CFO and David Zaslav stressed the importance of video games but the more they talked it was clear that they had a Showbiz Boomer’s understanding of video games. There is no one on the Warner Brothers Discovery C-Suite floor who has a feel for the video game industry or gaming in general. I predict with sad confidence that Warner will hang on to the IPs forever. But end up shutting down some legendary gaming studios that they bought up and sent to the IP mines. They are going to end up doing what Disney was doing and just farm out the development work to outsiders.
The ridiculous part is just how well Warner is positioned for what everyone in Hollywood has decided is the emerging film market. After Mario Brothers blew up to $1.3 billion worldwide and Sonic is now a franchise with $750 million under its belt, Hollywood has decided that video game movies are the new superhero movies. Despite the fact that most of Hollywood’s efforts in this regard usually turn out like Super Mario Brothers (1993).
Hell, I just sat through Borderlands.* After writing this up now I’m bored and sad.
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*I’ll have the review up on Monday. Short story don’t see it. In case you’re curious, Handsome Jack doesn’t even show up for an end credits scene, he’s not in it at all.
