Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO of global streaming and games Jean-Briac Perrette has announced a company commitment to live service and mobile games going forward, based on the current volatility around the global games industry.
As reported by VGC, Perrette recently took the stage at a Morgan Stanley conference to detail more about the company’s forays into the world of video games. While Perrette acknowledged success in the form of Hogwarts Legacy, he also expressed disappointment that it was a “one and done” single player game that did not generate long-tail revenue.
“The challenge we’ve had is that our business historically there has been very triple-A console based and so, as you know, that’s a great business when you have a hit like Harry Potter, it makes the year look amazing, and then when you don’t have a release or unfortunately, we also have disappointments,” Perrette said, per VGC.
“We just released Suicide Squad this quarter which was not as strong – it just makes it very volatile.”
Read: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League – Review
The major difference between the titles, which appears to have gone unmentioned, is that Hogwarts Legacy is a robust single player adventure game, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a live service title that was met with public ire and critical backlash over its nature as a live service game.
Despite this reception, it appears Warner Bros. is still committed to developing games with live service mechanics, as it aims to create experiences that encourage players to invest and spend more money on a consistent basis.
“We think the opportunity for us, which again, this a multi-year [opportunity], because games is certainly a bit of a long cycle business too, but the opportunity is to take those four franchises [Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, DC] and be able to develop a much more holistic approach, particularly around expanding into the mobile and multiplatform free-to-play space, which could give us a much better and consistent set of revenue, and you’ll see us launching later this year some mobile free to play games, which we hope will start building that,” Perrette said.
“And then secondarily live services, so rather than just launching a kind of one and done console game, how do we develop a game around, for example, Hogwarts Legacy or Harry Potter, that is a live service where people can come today and live and work and build and play in that world on an ongoing basis?”
Perrette further expressed a belief that Warner Bros. Discovery is in a good position to create compelling live service and mobile games in future, with a number of talented studios under the company banner. Going forward, it’s expected that these studios will turn focus to new live service-oriented experiences.
