Warner Bros Discovery’s CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games just openly spoke about making new live service games out of franchises like Harry Potter.
The man on top of WB Games is J.B. Perrette, who had previously been president and CEO of Discovery before their merger with Warner Bros. Perrette’s claim to fame is managing Hulu for Discovery, which would certainly look like a mixed bag for most of us, but he seems to be well regarded in the entertainment business for that.
Perrette was on hand at a Morgan Stanley speaking event, where he talked about what the company was planning to do next with their gaming business.
This is what Perrette said, as shared by Gamespot:
“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.”
At this point, Perrette may have most gamers on board with him. But then he continues to describe WB Games’ recent output, that Hogwarts Legacy was an unparalleled success for their business, but they recently experienced a flop with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
Now, Perrette describes the AAA business as volatile as well. So their plan moving forward is to bring some of their properties to mobile and free-to-play, while also investing more into live service games.
And here’s where he describes putting Harry Potter into a live service game framework:
“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?”
Perrette is clear that not all of Warner Bros’ properties are getting the live service treatment, but it’s definitely something that we may expect to see more of from them in the future. He also pointed out that WB Games core strengths are in its rich library of IPs, as well as the 11 video game studios it owns.
Perrette ends the speech by pointing out these are long term investments. He isn’t talking about the expected long tails of live service games, but rather, the fact that they don’t expect to see the investments bear fruit until sometime between 2025 to 2027, on the games that are in development now.
Gamers may not like to hear this talk, but Perrette was being clear that the live service push was not an exclusive pivot to that model. It may be the case that they can’t avoid getting into it, any more than Nintendo couldn’t avoid getting into mobile games a few years before. Their investors know the money is in it, they have no reason to rule it out.
Perrette even revealed that he doesn’t feel like he knows where the game business will be in the next few years. If anything, WB Games’ live service push is something they are going to try, to see how it works out. That isn’t really as enthusiastic as David Zaslav threatening to make every IP a live service universe last year.
But then, if there are gamers that will loudly complain about live service games, there are also gamers playing them and paying for them, and they are paying much more money than people who buy games full price. If gamers dread a future full of WB live service games, they should be paying attention to the other gamers who are playing these games.
