Warner Bros. Discovery is planning to focus on live service games
During a recent earnings call for Warner Bros. Discovery, it was revealed that the company was looking into transitioning some of its biggest IPs into live service games.
09th Nov 2023 22:59
Image via Warner Bros. Discovery
Warner Bros. Discovery is planning to focus on live service games
During a recent earnings call for Warner Bros. Discovery, it was revealed that the company was looking into transitioning some of its biggest IPs into live service games.
09th Nov 2023 22:59
Image via Warner Bros. Discovery
During a recent earnings call for Warner Bros. Discovery, it was revealed that the company was looking into transitioning some of its biggest IPs into live service games.
The company has had a very successful 2023, with some of the year's biggest releases coming from the publisher.
Warner Bros. Discovery is taking an interest in live service games
CEO David Zaslav said in the latest earnings call (transcribed by Seeking Alpha) that Warner Bros. Discovery is focused on transitioning its top franchises, including Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, DC and Mortal Kombat, into live service games.
Zaslav said: “Our focus is on transforming our biggest franchises from largely console and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always on gameplay through live services, multiplatform and free-to-play extensions with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platforms.
“Ultimately, we want to drive engagement and monetization of longer cycles and at higher levels. We have specific capabilities. We are currently under scale and see significant opportunity to generate greater post-purchase revenue.”
This year has been a big one for games from Warner Bros. with the release of Hogwarts Legacy in February, which quickly became one of the best-selling games for the first half of 2023.
The success has only been furthered by the release of Mortal Kombat 1 last month, which has been well received by critics and reportedly already sold 3 million copies.
Backlash against Suicide Squad does not appear to have deterred Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. decision to double down on live service content is interesting given the backlash that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has received.
After a disastrous demo during a Sony State of Play earlier this year, the game saw a lot of complaints from players about the live service aspects of the game.
This ultimately meant that the game was delayed for almost a year, and is now set to release in 2024.
Warner Bros. Discovery has not shared any information regarding what live service would look like in regards to their games, however if they decide to go down this route it is likely we will see sooner rather than later.
About The Author
Megan Cooke
Megan is GGRecon's Evening & Weekend News Writer. She has an undergraduate degree in Creative Writing and is working towards finishing her masters in Journalism. When she isn’t writing about games she can be found reading romance novels or playing cosy games like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, APICO, and Disney Dreamlight Valley.
