Warner Bros. doesn’t seem to think there are too many live service games, and it intends to push out more of them.
During its recent earnings call, CEO David Zaslav said the company’s main priority with games remains a transition to live services.
“Our focus is on transforming our biggest franchises from largely console and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always on gameplay through live services, multiplatform and free-to-play extensions with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platforms,” he said.
“Ultimately we want to drive engagement and monetization of longer cycles and at higher levels. We have put specific capabilities. We are currently under scale and see significant opportunity to generate greater post purchase revenue.”
The most recent games released by Warner Bros. are Hogwarts Legacy and Mortal Kombat 1. Both games have seen success in sales with Hogwarts Legacy selling over 12 million copies in its first two weeks and Mortal Kombat 1, according to Zaslav, moving nearly 3 million copies since launch.
He says that the IP is there, and it’s time for the company to capitalize on them.
“[W]e’ve got the proven IP and franchises, the world class studios and publishing talent and we intend to continue to invest more capital and more resources into the business,” Zaslav said.
He added that he views each of the company’s franchises as separate $1 billion gaming properties.
Are you surprised that Warner Bros. remains set on live service games despite the feeling across the industry of live service fatigue? For more Insider Gaming, check out how much Google offered Epic to put Fortnite on the Play Store.
