WB Games has officially completed and announced the details of its restructuring.
It goes without saying that the writing was on the wall for WB Games’ current management when Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League turned out to be a massive loss generator, but WB Games already started making changes from the start of this year. David Haddad stepped down as president of WB Games in January of this year. He was replaced by JB Perrette, who was surprisingly vouched for by no less than Jason Schreier.
As reported by Variety, WB Games’ parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is set to split into WBD Streaming & Studios, and WBD Global Networks. WB Games will be part of WBD Streaming & Studios, placing them under Perrette, and above him, the now notorious David Zaslav.
But we should focus on the other management shifts in WB Games as they do sound promising. Yves Lachance, who was studio head of WB Games Montreal, has been promoted to senior vice president for the teams working on both Harry Potter and Game of Thrones games. Shaun Himmerick, who was studio head of NetherRealm Studios, is now senior vice president for the teams on Mortal Kombat and DC Comics games. Steven Flenory, who was head of WB Games New York Studio, is now senior vice president for central tech & services, putting him in charge of QA and customer service among others.
We have known for some time that WB Games was planning to refocus around Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat and DC Comics. The real news here is that the developers who headed their studios like NetherRealm are now in the position to make decisions on future games.
This new arrangement seems to directly address the rumored issues surrounding WB Games following the closure of Monolith Productions. The rumors going around were that David Haddad was too unwilling to make risky decisions, which meant he would not greenlight games for Monolith and WB Games Montreal for years. Subsequently, it was also rumored that WB Games management was manipulating Monolith Production’s staff, making them hope they could pitch new game ideas when management never intended to greenlight any of them.
And it should go without saying, but the biggest games of this generation, such as Elden Ring, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Resident Evil Village, and Fortnite, were all built on taking risks. It’s easy to take for granted that game developers never really know which game ideas will gain gamers’ love or enmity until they’re really out there. It’s very early signs, but at the very least, this looks like the correct first steps to get WB Games back in order. Hopefully, good games, and new good games, will be what we get next.
