Warner Bros Doubles Down on Mobile and Free to Play Titles
In a recent announcement from Warner Bros. Games, CEO J.B. Perrette announced that their studios would turn away from AAA releases in favour of live service, free to play offerings. This comes after the disastrous launch of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which is currently sitting at an abysmal 199 players. Comparing this to developer Rocksteady’s previous game from 2014 (which is not live service), which has nearly 10x that figure according to Steam Charts.
Due to the very poor performance of their latest project, Warner Bros. CEO had the following to say in regards to their future plans for their gaming divisions:
"We're doubling down on games as an area where we think there is a lot more growth opportunity that we can tap into with the IP that we have and some of the capabilities we have on the studio where we're uniquely positioned as both a publisher and a developer of games. Rather than just launching a one-and-done console game, how do we develop a game around, for example, a Hogwarts Legacy or Harry Potter, that is a live-service where people can live and work and build and play in that world in an ongoing basis?"
From this announcement, it seems that Warner Bros. will be positioning their studios (including RockSteady and the team behind last year’s ‘Hogwarts Legacy’) to be far more involved in the mobile gaming space. Essentially, it seems that, despite the success of Hogwarts Legacy, Warner Bros. wants to double down on live services and free to play experiences that continue to make revenue as they march on. This doesn’t bode good news for fans of Harry Potter, as it appears that a potential follow up to Hogwarts Legacy would be a live service experience as opposed to single player.
Image by Warner Bros.
Whether this announcement will actually see the entirety of their IPs (which includes Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat and Middle Earth games) become more ingrained into the mobile, free to play space remains to be seen. However, considering that the executives seem to be doubling down on a strategy that clearly didn’t work with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, hopefully, they come to their senses and realise that the world does not need any more live service titles- especially considering how saturated the market is at the moment.
