Warner Bros. has just acquired Player First Games, the developer behind Multiversus.
As reported by Variety, Warner Bros. Games San Diego will now be in charge of the studio. WB Games San Diego head and VP Carlos Barbosa is now the man on top, but co-founders Tony Huynh and Chris White will continue to run the company.
It’s a big move for WB Games, and noteworthy given everything else going on in WB Games, and Warner Bros. Discovery in general. Multiversus was officially released last May 28, after spending a long extended beta, and making fans wait a few months more. Today, Multiversus is on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.
While we know that the player count for Multiversus dipped compared to how many were playing during the beta, that would be a somewhat misleading picture of how live service works. With every new release of major content, live service games like Multiversus get players coming back to spend.
In others words, not every live service game gets constant engagement like Fortnite, but those studios can get by on just getting people to jump back in with every new content update. Every update, and player resurgence, could mean new players, but more importantly, it means dedicated players will buy the new content.
Warner Bros. Games president David Haddad shared this statement about their purchase:
“We have worked with Player First Games over several years to create and launch ‘MultiVersus,’ and we are very pleased to welcome this talented team to Warner Bros. Games. The bright and creative team at Player First Games adds to our extensive development capabilities.”
Huynh, on his end, had this to say:
“Our team is excited to join the Warner Bros. Games family, and we feel that this will be great for MultiVersus overall. We are working to make the MultiVersus game experience the best it can be and having our development team integrated with the publisher is optimum for the players.”
It certainly looks like things are going well for Multiversus overall. We just reported on fan favorite characters Samurai Jack and Beetlejuice coming as part of Season 2.
We’re happy for Player First Games, but this raises questions about the other fighting game studio owned by Warner Bros. Games. We also just reported on NetherRealm Studios employees revealing that they were laid off, but this has yet to be confirmed by NRS or WB Games officially.
And somehow, with all this going on, their parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is experiencing its own turmoil too. As reported by Reuters, Zaslav is thinking of selling off their streaming business and film studio to its own company. There’s a layer of uncertainty in the conglomerate that really makes things unpredictable for everyone working for it.
