Warner Bros. Discovery now recognizes that Hogwarts Legacy is their premiere video game franchise of the moment.
As reported by Variety, no less than Warner Bros. Discovery’s CFO touted the game in a new interview. Gunnar Wiedenfels went on record to say this:
“Obviously, a successor to ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ is one of the biggest priorities in a couple of years down the road. So there is certainly a significant growth contribution from that [games] business in our strategic outlook here.”
Warner Bros. Discovery’s gaming division did a speedrun of the prerequisite boom and bust cycle that is typical of the video game industry. Hogwarts Legacy launched in 2023, and sold a total 24 million units at the start of this year.
On the other hand, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, which launched at the start of this year, has turned out to be one of the biggest failures for the year, and for Warner Bros. Discovery (yes, we mean the whole company).
Warner Bros. Discovery won’t disclose how many units Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League sold. However, they revealed that they took a $ 200 million loss on the game.
The other big games in Warner Bros. Discovery’s library are in a somewhat muddled state. Mortal Kombat 1 did not have a bad launch, but players abandoned the game rapidly over technical issues, and the community’s issues with its total game design. Multiversus relaunched after going offline for over a year. It also had an OK launch, but failed to retain players. It also didn’t turn out to get back their original player base from its open beta.
We reported on layoffs at Rocksteady Studios, who made Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, and NetherRealm Studios, who made Mortal Kombat 1. While the popular perception was that Warner Bros. Discovery was responsible for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League‘s failure, a new report from Jason Schreier claimed that it was Rocksteady’s former management who were to blame.
In stark contrast, Warner Bros. Discovery acquired Multiversus developer Player First Games, and we knew of job openings at Portkey Games as recently as last year.
It’s hard to tell what Warner Bros. Discovery is really thinking about their games business. Last month, they talked publicly about selling off part of their game business, and also licensing their characters off to other studios.
Some of those ideas could work out well or not. For example, an independent NetherRealm could sink or swim, depending on how they are spun off. If Warner Bros. Discovery doesn’t have a clear direction, they’re just throwing caution off to the wind.
We know that reflects in part of the infamous current leadership at Warner Bros. Discovery as well. Nonetheless, greenlighting a Hogwarts Legacy is the bare minimum of what they can get right. Hopefully the company can figure out what they really want to do moving forward.
