The video game division at Warner Bros. has affirmed its desire to focus its strategy around three pillars: game-service, free-to-play and mobile. The failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League didn’t teach him a lesson.
In 2023, Warner Bros. threw Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy, a classic big-budget video game. Result: 22 million copies sold, the biggest success of the year. In 2024, Warner Bros. threw Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a game set to last. Result: a huge flop, which suffered strong criticism and whose future seems uncertain. The continuation of the Warner Bros. strategy. will amaze you.
During a discussion at an event organized by the Morgan Stanley bank, JB Perrette, head of Warner Bros. Discovery, discussed the company’s new strategy. The idea is this: focus less on one-off titles like Hogwarts Legacy (with random success according to him) to focus on productions that generate regular income. In short, service games, free-to-play and mobile games. What embodies Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguee.
Warner Bros.’ new strategy is incomprehensible
That Warner Bros. is cautious about the incredible commercial performance ofHogwarts Legacy is audible. On the other hand, that the publisher is so wrong about its new growth levers, despite irrefutable indicators, is really difficult to understand. Even PlayStation, which had once focused on service games, backtracked, canceling the multiplayer game The Last of Us, For example. It must be realized that, behind the exception constituted by Fortnitethere is a lot of disillusionment and many failures. Anthem And Marvel’s Avengers are two cases among others.
Warner Bros. in reality relies on its large licenses to make its business profitable. However, this is not a guarantee of success. Articulated around the Batman mythology, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League did not convince however.
And yet. “ Rather than launching a game with fixed content on a console, why not develop a game around, for example, Harry Potter or Hogwarts Legacy, with evolving content, where people could regularly build and play in this universe? », argues JB Perrette.
He also believes enormously in “virtual worlds”, while even Meta is struggling with them. JB Perrette seems to have gone back a few years, to a time when everyone believed in service games and metaverses.
Warner Bros. naturally dreams of profiting from the remarkable success of Hogwarts Legacy, and the still strong appeal of the Harry Potter brand to develop a sequel which would then take the form of a formula ensuring regular income. A bet that could prove risky and ruin the entire experience and all the satisfaction for the public that the first game was able to put in place.
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