When it comes to Warner Bros Discovery, they are an entity that has done one consistent thing since merging a few years back: ticking off a lot of people. Does that seem blunt? Good. It was meant to be that way, as it’s very easy to prove. Ever since the company merged and new leadership took hold, all sorts of bad decisions have been made from top to bottom all over the company. That includes, if not obvious, the gaming branch of the company, which has suffered in many ways over the last several years because of decisions “from the top.”
That leads to a new article from the Financial Times, which states that Warner Bros Discovery might be interested in selling off some of its “smaller assets” to try and recoup some of the losses they’ve been taking recently. If you don’t watch the stock market, the company’s share prices have fallen heavily ever since the merger, mainly due to their continued bad decisions via David Zaslav and beyond. In the gaming space, it’s been more of a case of “get a few hits and have a couple of even bigger misses.”
For example, one of the teams under the WBD gaming banner is NetherRealm Studios. Yes, they had some layoffs recently when they got rid of its mobile gaming division; however, its console lineup has been strong. The last two entries in its classic fighting game series have been huge hits, so they’re safe, more than likely, from any kind of sale.
Then, there’s Avalanche Studios, which made the 2023 top-selling title Hogwarts Legacy, which is getting a sequel by the same team. They’re likely safe, too, given the money they’ll bring in if they can make a quality sequel.
However, with Rocksteady, things aren’t so simple. While we all know them for their trilogy of games featuring Batman, the LONG-delayed 2024 title featuring the Suicide Squad was anything but successful. It was blasted by fans and critics, and even WBD said that they took a $200 million loss on the game because of how well they projected it to do initially.
Reports later came out that WBD forced Rocksteady to step away from its single-player narrative style that they made work well with Batman, and instead make a live-service game, which they had no experience with. The results were clear.
Other teams might be up on the chopping block, too, depending on what WBD wants to do to try and get money back. If they are sold off, we hope they end up with someone who lets them be the developer they desire to be.
