Warner Bros. roster of IP is one of the strongest assets at its disposal, but the company’s gaming division – much as the larger company itself – is continuing to struggle, with WB Games having seen a 41 percent decline in revenue last quarter due to the failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Recent reports claimed that Warner Bros. Discovery was looking to sell stake in its video games business to combat the sharp declines the company is grappling with, and though that’s not quite the step it is taking, it does look like WB Games is going to go for a different strategy going forward.
Speaking during Warner Bros. Discover’s recent quarterly earnings call, when asked about the company’s gaming business and future, CEO David Zaslav revealed that the company will be looking to license out some of its IP to other, external development studios- which means internal Warner Bros. studios might not necessarily be the ones developing games on WB IP going forward.
“We have 11 studios here, and we have a lot of IP,” Zaslav said (transcription via IGN). “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. Because as JB [Perrette, president of global streaming and games] said, 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.”
The list of IP that WB has access to is mouthwatering, to say the very least, with heavy-hitters such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Batman, Superman, and many others included. The prospect of those properties being licensed out to developers across the industry – similar to the approach Marvel and Disney have taken in recent years – would certainly be an intriguing one.