Warner Bros. Discovery's treasure trove of iconic franchises may soon be available for video game companies to work with, as Warner. Brothers' gaming division takes hits for not performing as well as last year due to the less-than-ideal launch numbers of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The company seems to be looking to license out its IPs outside of its own cluster of studios.
As reported by IGN, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and JB Perrette, the president of global streaming and games, have confirmed the decision to license out its franchises, which include Harry Potter, Batman, Justice League, Looney Tunes, and Game of Thrones, among others.
"We have 11 studios here, and we have a lot of IP, and there’s also a lot of interest among others in coming to take advantage of some of that IP for gaming, which we’re looking at," says Zaslav in an earnings call. "We need to get bigger, and the IP that we own and the value that it has in the gaming space is something we're looking to take advantage of."
In the same investor call, the publisher's intentions to keep pushing forward in the free-to-play gaming space were also revealed. It acquired the free-to-play fighting game MultiVersus developer Player First Games earlier this year too.
Warner Bros Games's latest performance numbers saw the giant have a 41% decline in revenue year-over-year, which it attributed to the lack of success seen from its live-service attempt Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The $200 million loss from the game has been a heavy hit for the publisher. Meanwhile, just last year, the single-player entry Hogwarts Legacy sold record numbers to become 2023's best-selling game in the US alone and has so far sold 24 million copies worldwide.
Despite being set in the hugely popular Batman Arkham universe and made by the same developer, the title was panned by both critics and fans alike. In Neowin's own review of the game, I called out the game for being a largely repetitive experience with too much focus on being a looter shooter.
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