Part of Warner Bros. big plan to be a highly successful games publisher has historically been getting its own internal studios to leverage its wealth of IP. That’s why we’ve seen teams owned by WB Games taking on franchises like DC, Harry Potter and more.
While that’s gone great in the case of games like Hogwarts Legacy, which was the biggest game in 2023 in terms of sales, it’s also not worked out in other cases, like Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
But games remain important to WB, so it won’t be giving up on its internal studios – but it’s also not going to be limiting itself to just those studios. At least that’s what it sounded like during WB’s latest earnings call.
Chief executive officer David Zaslav and president of global streaming and games JB Perrette both spoke about how WB is looking to expand its games business further, recognizing that there are plenty of studios outside of WB’s internal 11 that would love to work with any number of WB’s big franchises.
“We have 11 studios here, and we have a lot of IP,” Zaslav said. “And there’s a lot of interest among others in coming to take advantage of some of that IP for gaming, which we’re looking at.”
Perrette added “We continue to be strong believers in the game space, we want to continue to see and figure out how we lean into it and get bigger in that space.”
Last month WB acquired MultiVersus developer Player First Games, a move that Perette singled out as part of WB’s plan to expand the games business, specifically regarding live service games.
If WB does start to license its IP to other teams, then just like how when Disney stopped giving EA exclusive rights to Star Wars games, we could be in for a renaissance of games based off the swaths of IP under Warner Bros.
Source – [IGN]