As we now know, WB Games has seen the exit of their previous head, David Haddad, alongside the closure of three of their studios, and the cancellation of the Wonder Woman video game. Furthermore, all of this recent news comes after WB Games had layoffs in their other studios, in the fallout of the massive failure of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
So as depressing as it is, one wouldn’t be surprised if you assumed that WB Games is in its last legs. Interestingly, Jason Schreier believes that there’s still reason to hope that they can turn it around.
As he explained in the latest episode of Kinda Funny, he has heard good things about JB Perrette. Perrette’s official job title is Warner Bros Discovery’s CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games. But with Haddad gone, and no one immediately assigned to take his place, Perrette is de facto the man in charge of WB Games.
Schreier got to talk to Perrette multiple times. He believes Perrette seems to know what he’s talking about when he talks about games. Perrette told Schreier that game development is a nonlinear process, something that other executives take years to figure out.
We believe that we can back up Schreier’s account of things as well. Perrette spoke about WB Games’ interest in making live service games in March of last year. But for such a prickly topic, he was reasonable in stating that they didn’t intend to make all their games live service. That’s more than what certain other video game executives would know.
Schreier goes on to say that he’s heard good things from his sources. Perrette asks the right questions, and the people in WB Games are higher on him than they are vs. Haddad.
Unfortunately, in response to their disastrous losses in 2024, Perrette chose to close three studios and cancel a game. While this is a decision that clearly impacts and harms the industry, the flip side is that Rocksteady, WB Montreal, and Avalanche are now more secure. The thinking is that these cuts are WB Games’ big drastic move to get the division in order. In a few years, they will reassess how things go.
In regards to live service, Schreier claims that in spite of appearances, WB’s executives are just saying what shareholders want to hear. As we have seen, although Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League got released as a live service game, Gotham Knights was pulled back from being a live service game. Hogwarts Legacy was not a live service game, and it was never planned to be one.
As things stand, their real focus is not to make more live service games, but to focus on their core franchises. That means Mortal Kombat, Harry Potter, Game Of Thrones, and even DC, but mainly Batman. And Perrette understands that Hogwarts Legacy’s success was an anomaly, and they shouldn’t expect other games to be that successful.
However, WB Games still has high expectations, especially now that they’re narrowing their focus. They still expect their games to monetize into billion dollar franchises. WB Games will not be satisfied with games that sell 2 million units. And if you think about it, fans would also say that if Hogwarts Legacy 2 or Batman Arkham 4 only sold 2 million units, that would be a disappointment.
So even if 2 million sounds like a pretty high number on its own, in context, these are reasonable expectations to set for some of the industry’s most beloved franchises. And it’s up to Perrette to make the right, risky decisions his predecessor didn’t want to make, to make sure they meet those expectations.
