In the recent headline-making kerfuffle over who’ll end up owning what parts of Warner Bros. Discovery, one division seemed to be lost in the mix – Warner Bros. Games.
The publisher, formerly known as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, was founded in 2004 and owns a number of noted developers including Rocksteady Studios (“Batman: Arkham”), NetherRealm Studios (“Mortal Kombat”), Avalanche Software (“Hogwarts Legacy”), TT Games (LEGO game titles), and the sadly now shuttered Monolith Productions (“Middle- Earth: Shadow of Mordor”).
Now, a transcript of an investor Q&A session has revealed that the streaming giant has seemingly given little thought to the group in its nearly $83 billion deal.
So much so that Gregory K. Peters, the company’s co-CEO, president and director, says that Warners’ games division (which they will own should the deal go through) didn’t even factor into Netflix’s bid as they are so ‘minor’ in the overall Warners empire:
“While they definitely have been doing some great work in the game space, we actually didn’t attribute any value to that from the get-go because they’re relatively minor compared to the grand scheme of things.
Now we are super excited because some of those properties that they’ve built,
‘Hogwarts [Legacy]’ is a great example of that, have been done quite well, and we think that we can incorporate that into what we’re offering.They’ve got great studios and great folks working there. So we think that there’s definitely an opportunity there. But just to be clear, we haven’t built that into our deal model.”
Netflix had grand gaming ambitions a few years back, but has seemingly dialled things back. bit. The games they do focus on are primarily in the mobile space and for four audiences – kids, acquiring existing game IP for their audience, narrative games based on Netflix IP, and multiplayer party games.
WB Games, meanwhile, has been facing rough times as the company’s pursuit of live service trends led to high-profile failures like “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League,” “MultiVersus,” “Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions”. The division underwent major restructuring earlier this year, with at least two studios closed off, and has been heavily criticised for ignoring players in favour of appeasing investors.
Source: Pocket Gamer
