Warner Bros. Discovery has said its games division is “substantially underperforming” in a recent earnings call outlining current performance, and what’s next for the company. While the outlook into the future is positive, it appears WBD has had a disappointing quarter, with its games division flagging behind.
“Even in an industry of hits and misses, we must acknowledge that our Studios business must deliver more consistently. This applies to our games business, which we recognise is substantially underperforming its potential right now,” CEO David Zaslav said, per VGC.
The plan, going forward, appears to be focussing on four key gaming franchises: Hogwarts Legacy (Harry Potter), DC (particularly Batman), Game of Thrones, and Mortal Kombat. Zaslav described these as the pillars of the WBD games division, with new projects set to rely on “proven studios to improve [WBD’s] success ratio.”
Per further comment by CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, part of the underperformance mentioned is due to MultiVersus. The company took a “USD $100+ million impairment due to the underperforming releases – primarily MultiVersus – this quarter.” That brings the total write down for the WBD games business this financial year to over USD $300 million.
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For now, WBD is not expecting a significant upturn or change to these results, with Q4 expected to be “flat to modestly better” year-on-year.
In the meantime, it’s alleged the company is currently looking to sell a stake in its games business, to reverse its fortunes. There has been no further news of this potential outcome since an August 2024 report from The Financial Times, but continued underperformance may spur the company’s plans onward.
What’s next for MultiVersus?
As for MultiVersus, it’s unclear what Warner Bros. Discovery has planned for the game. Its fourth season of content was just announced, with the arrivals of Teen Titans‘ Raven and Adventure Time‘s Marceline in store – but it doesn’t appear the game has managed to harness the excitement of its re-release, as expected. MultiVersus briefly became an incredibly popular fighter when it launched in 2022, but odd release plans saw it disappear for a year, in the hopes it would come back even stronger.
Realistically, this gap seemed to actually off-side players, with many complaining of spending money on the game, only to have it disappear soon after. On re-launch, MultiVersus did attract a new spike in players, but this was not sustained. From a peak of over 150,000 players, the game is now hitting 24-hour peaks of around 1,700.
Read: MultiVersus could be getting Barbie, Harry Potter tie-ins
New character drops do inspire more uptake as they land, but at this stage, it does appear MultiVersus isn’t quite the hit WBD was expecting. Whether that means a change in character release cadence, fewer resources devoted to the game, or something more drastic, remains unclear. For now, it’s contributing to significant write-offs for the company, as players seemingly aren’t spending enough to hit WBD’s goals.
We’ll have to wait to see what’s next for MultiVersus, and for the other major franchises holding up Warner Bros. Discovery’s games division.
