Following the release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed that it will continue to lean on live-service games despite Rocksteady’s latest work being a “disappointment,” including what could be new live-service titles based on its popular Hogwarts Legacy and Harry Potter franchises. The news comes from Jean-Briac Perrette, President and CEO of Global Streaming & Games at Warner Bros. Discovery, who added during yesterday’s Morgan Stanley 2024 Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference that Warner Bros. would also be expanding to F2P multiplayer and mobile games to ensure more consistent revenue due to the “volatility” of traditional, console-based AAA games.
Perrette on why Warner Bros. can’t rely on traditional releases:
The challenge we’ve had is our business, historically, there has been very AAA console-based. And so as you know, that’s a great business when you have a hit like Harry Potter. It makes the year look amazing. And then when you don’t have a release or, unfortunately, we also have disappointments as we just released Suicide Squad this quarter, which was not as strong. It just makes it very volatile.
Perrette confirming that Warner Bros. will be releasing new mobile F2P games this year:
…the opportunity is to take those 4 franchises and be able to develop a much more holistic approach, particularly around expanding into the mobile and multi-platform free-to-play space, which could give us a much better and more consistent set of revenue. And you’ll see us launching later this year, some mobile free-to-play games, which we hope will start building that.
Warner Bros. on its live service plans:
…rather than just launching a kind of one-and-done console game, how do we develop a game around, for example, Hogwarts Legacy or Harry Potter that is a live service, where people can continue to live and work and build and play in that world on an ongoing basis. And so we think we’ve got the franchises. We’ve got some of the greatest studio capabilities. And we have a road map and a strategic investment plan to try and build out that business, and we think there is meaningful growth over the course of the next couple of years.