WB believes in live-service model despite Suicide Squad failure, signals move away from Triple-A games

Warner Bros. Games It remains unaffected by its sub-par critical and commercial performance Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League And plans to lean more into the live service model to grow its games. JB Parrett, CEO and president of global streaming and games at Warner Bros. Discovery, outlined the company’s games strategy at a recent Morgan Stanley speaking event, and the studio’s plans to further invest in the ‘games as a service’ model. Reiterated the intentions of -play games and mobile titles, and expressed skepticism about the “volatile” business of bespoke triple-A games on consoles.

Speaking at Morgan Stanley’s recent Technology Media and Telecom Conference, Parrett Repeated Warner Bros. committed to converting its biggest franchises into live-service games and suggested a strategic shift away from triple-A releases.

“The challenge we face is that our business, historically, has been very triple-A console-based. It’s a great business when you have a hit like Harry Potter (Hogwarts Legacy), this year. And then, when you don’t have a release, or, unfortunately, we’re disappointed — we just released Suicide Squad this quarter, which wasn’t as strong — it makes it. Makes it very volatile,” the executive said.

Perrette said the current Warner Bros Franchises like Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter And DC gave the studio an opportunity to expand its offerings beyond the console space. “We think there’s an opportunity to take these four franchises and develop a much more holistic approach, particularly around expanding the play space into mobile and multi-platform, which will give us a much better revenue and Can give a more permanent set,” he said. The executive confirmed that WB Games will launch several free-to-play games on mobile later this year.

Despite last year’s huge success The Hogwarts LegacyWB Games seems to have little faith in triple-A console releases, due to long development cycles and high development costs. The studio believes that a live service model, on the other hand, can offer continued engagement and generate revenue more consistently. Parrett said that Warner Bros. would look to expand its existing games around the live service model and suggested that the Hogwarts Legacy sequel might offer something similar. “Instead of launching just another working console game, how we develop a game, for example Hogwarts Legacy or Harry Potter, is a live service, where people can continue to live and work. And can build and play in it. The world on an ongoing basis? He said.

Warner Bros. had it. announced Its strategy is to move into the live service space on an earnings call in November last year. WB CEO David Zaslaw said the company planned to turn its biggest video game franchises into long-term products. “Ultimately we want to drive longer cycles and higher levels of engagement and monetization,” Zaslav said at the time.

The studio also seems unsettled by the failure of its latest triple-A release, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which followed the live-action looter-shooter model. The game, which was released last month on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X, Allegedly Warner Bros. did not live up to expectations. At the time of writing, the third-person shooter has 208. Online players On Steam, with just over 13,000 all-time pack players. In our own 6/10 Review For the game, we said that Kill the Justice League was severely hampered by its live-service model, with “stunning design choices, world mission structure, and unclear identity” against the game’s strengths. was working

The games-as-a-service model has also apparently reached a point of saturation, with several titles competing to maintain player engagement. While popular games like Fortnite and Call of Duty have done well, newer releases have struggled to successfully adapt the model. Even the top-grossing live service titles seem to have lost favor among gamers themselves.

Hogwarts Legacy, a single-player console release with no microtransactions and live service elements, became the best-selling game last year. sell out Over 22 million copies.

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