Today Warner Bros. Discovery announced its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, related to the period between April and June.
We hear from the press release that game revenue declined 41% year-on-year, primarily driven by the weak performance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, compared to last year’s strong performance of Hogwarts Legacy.
During the following livestreamed presentation, CEO of Global Streaming and Games JB Perrette mentioned that gaming is “one of the unique areas in media that is growing in terms of time spent, engagement, and revenue so it’s still a “huge opportunity” for the company.
He added that launching brand-new franchises is getting harder and harder, but franchises like those owned by Warner Bros. are in high demand and can help in launching games.
Yet, Perrette admitted that to be successful you still need a great game (regardless of franchise) and the reality is that in twelve months WB went from the record year generated by Hogwarts Legacy to “unfortunately having the opposite side of that spectrum with Suicide Squad.”
While part of the gaming business will still be “hit-driven,” Perrette mentioned that one of the areas that WB is particularly leaning into is the free-to-play space. The recent acquisition of Player First Games was done to enhance WB’s capabilities in that space, where there are opportunities to grow.
This will also help provide balance to the company’s game business, protecting it from the “inevitable cyclicality of more console-based releases which have 3-to-4 years time horizon and a little bit more lumpiness even when you do get it right.”
“We continue to be strong believers in the game space. We want to continue to see and figure out how we lean into it and get bigger in that space and we’ll certainly tell you more about it as time goes on.”
President and CEO David Zaslav hinted that other developers could also partake in Warner Bros.’ IPs, which the company is considering.
“There is also a lot of interest among others in coming to take advantage of some of that IP for gaming, which we’re looking at, because we need to get bigger because the IP that we own and the value that it has in the gaming space is something we’re looking to take advantage of.”
If you’d like to read more about gaming industry financial results, several have already been announced and we have dedicated reports, including Capcom, Koei Tecmo, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Konami, Nintendo, Square Enix, Sega, and Sony.
