Warner Bros. Games may be sold, at least in part, according to a report in the Financial Times. The publication revealed that its parent company – Warner Bros. Discovery – is considering selling “minor” parts of the company, including part of its video game division and a Polish broadcaster (TVN).
Unfortunately, there are few details at the moment, but we can make some considerations on the matter.
Who would want to buy these teams?
Currently, the situation of Warner Bros. Games is complicated. While on the one hand, successful games have arrived over the years, such as the Mortal Kombat saga and, above all, the recent Hogwarts Legacy, on the other hand, there have been various investments that do not seem to have brought particularly positive results – such as Multiversus – and projects that we struggle not to define as real failures such as Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League.
Hogwarts Legacy is one of the great successes of Warner Bros. Games
A partial sale of the development teams that make up Warner Bros. Discovery’s games division would clearly aim to eliminate studios that have struggled over the years, but are consequently less interesting.
Furthermore, the truth is that WB Games’ greatest value right now is not so much in its teams (Netherealms aside, since a team with experience in fighting games could be tempting for some big publishers) but rather in the IPs the company has access to.
The best way, according to what the CEO of WBD indicated, seems to be to license such IPs so as to run less risk in case of failure and earn something to support some internal projects. What could they be? Free to play games, based on the statements of the CEO.
The problem with all of this is that if that slice of WB Games could end up for sale it would be of little interest to many. Years ago Microsoft or even Embracer could have made a big offer for the entire package, but right now both companies don’t seem to have the ability or the will to jump into a purchase campaign. There’s always Take-Two, who in the past had seemed interested in the acquisition, but may have changed their minds by now.
One consequence could be that, given the impossibility of selling certain teams, WBD simply decides to lay off staff and close entire studios. Let’s hope that’s not what happens.
This is an editorial written by a member of the editorial staff and is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Aroged.
