WB Discovery Wants to License Franchises Like Batman, Harry Potter, and More to Other Studios

Batman. Justice League. Harry Potter. Looney Tunes. Game of Thrones. Warner Bros. Discovery’s roster of intellectual property is expansive, and much of it seems ripe for the task of being turned into a video game. If you thought WB was a bit leisurely to embrace that library, it looks like the company’s management agrees, and intends to not only make more of its own games, but also license some of its biggest franchises to other game studios in the future.

Today on Warner Bros. Discovery Q2 earnings, CEO David Zaslav and president of global streaming and games JB Perrette addressed the question about the “strategic value” of games for Warner Bros. given the recent “uneven results.” The company just reported a 41% year-over-year decline in games revenue due to the frail performance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League compared to the huge success of Hogwarts Legacy last year. Does WB see games as a core part of its portfolio?

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The answer appears to be yes. Both Zaslav and Perrette explained that they wanted to grow the games business, particularly in the free-to-play space, which Perrette believes can lend a hand offset some of the ups and downs of the cyclical console industry. It’s one reason WB acquired Multiversus developer Player First Games earlier this year.

Zaslav added that not only does WB want to continue to leverage its eleven studios, but that “there’s also a lot of interest from others to leverage some of that IP for games, which we’re considering.”

Below is the full text of their responses:

Perrette: We look at the evolution of storytelling in interactive entertainment as a space and say that this is one of the unique areas in media that is growing, both in terms of time spent, engagement, and revenue. So we continue to see this as a huge opportunity for us. We know that our franchises, especially in a world where the games industry — launching completely up-to-date franchises is becoming increasingly challenging for a number of reasons, including the withdrawal of the IDFA and the greater challenges of marketing and customer acquisition. And that franchises like the ones we have are very popular and can lend a hand launch games. You still need a great game, and the reality is that we’ve had the misfortune of going from a record-breaking 2023 with Hogwarts Legacy to the unfortunate opposite of that spectrum with Suicide Squad in a low period of 12 months. Parts of that industry are still vulnerable, but one area that we’re particularly looking at, which is about half of the $200 billion games market, is the free-to-play market.

And the Player First deal was about strengthening our capabilities in that space. Because we think we’re subscale and we have more growth opportunities in that space, which is a large part of the market. And when we do that, it also helps to bring more balance to our games business, away from the inevitable cyclicality of console releases, which have a 3-4 year time horizon and a little bit more bumpiness, even when you do it well. So we’re still powerful advocates in the games space, and we want to continue to see and explore how to dig deeper and get bigger in that space, and we’ll definitely talk more about that as time goes on.

Zaslav: One of the strategic advantages of owning all of our IP is that as the world changes, you used to release a movie or a TV series and then you would make a game. But one of the reasons Hogwarts Legacy was so successful and was the No. 1 game last year was because you went into Hogwarts Legacy and you went into the game and you could become a part of that world. I think that’s ultimately a large part of where this industry is going. That we’ll make a movie, whether it’s Batman or Superman or Harry Potter, or maybe there’ll be a TV series, but the ability to go into that world and spend time with all of those characters is something that we still own. We have 11 studios here and we have a lot of IP. And there’s a lot of interest from others to take some of that IP and operate it for games, which we’re looking at. Because as JB said, we have to grow and the IP that we have and the value that it has in the games industry is something that we want to leverage.

Warner Bros. Discovery reported revenue of $9.7 billion for the quarter but an overall net loss of $10 billion, including $9.1 billion in impairment charges. The company also said the number of subscribers to its subscription services rose by 3.6 million from the previous quarter, for a total of 103.3 million.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Have a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

WB Discovery Wants to License Franchises Like Batman, Harry Potter, and More to Other Studios

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