Highlights
- Warner Bros. plans to turn its popular franchises into live services, aiming to extend game support for three to four years and generate more post-purchase revenue.
- Recent releases like Mortal Kombat 1 and Hogwarts Legacy have been highly successful, with WB looking to further expand profitability with famous franchises.
- While the plan aligns with the current trend of live services, the success of these games will ultimately depend on audience demand, as some games in this category have failed to find a lasting player base.
Warner Bros. is currently planning to transform its most popular franchises into live services, according to information revealed during the company’s latest quarterly earning call. With recent releases such as Mortal Kombat 1 achieving critical success and selling very well, it seems that WB wants to use this popularity to support its games for even longer.
2023 has been an excellent year for Warner Bros.’s gaming division so far. Released back in February, Hogwarts Legacy became one of the best-selling games of the year, still outselling new games months after its original launch. The recent Mortal Kombat 1 managed to sell almost 3 million units so far, another pretty good mark considering the game has not been out for two months yet. Now, WB is looking for ways to expand its profitability with famous franchises even more.
Ed Boon Teases Upcoming Mortal Kombat 1 Features
Game director Ed Boon teases upcoming features that will be added to popular fighting game Mortal Kombat 1 in future updates.
WB Discovery president David Zaslav talked about the gaming division during the recent Warner Bros. quarterly earning call. Zaslav explained that the current goal of the company is to focus more on live services, multiplatform, and F2P games. This would mean supporting games for longer than now, for around three to four years. This, the Warner Bros. executive explains, would drive more engagement from the audience and be able to “generate greater post-purchase revenue.” Zaslav said, "Our focus is on transforming our biggest franchises from largely console and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always-on gameplay through live services, multiplatform, and free-to-play extensions with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platforms.
Our focus is on transforming our biggest franchises from largely console and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always on gameplay through live services, multiplatform and free-to-play extensions with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platforms.
While Warner Bros.' plan makes sense considering the current popularity of its games, essentially every big gaming company wants to have a live service now. The number of possible live-service games is limited by demand and while some games achieve great success, others fail to find audiences that will keep playing. Titles such as Apex Legends Mobile and Battlefield Mobile have already shut down in 2023, for example. So, it remains to be seen how Warner Bros. will handle this.
While Warner Bros. plans its live service offerings for the future, its current games continue to sell well, and one of its latest hits is about to gain a new port. Hogwarts Legacy will be out for the Switch soon. Considering how stable the PS4 and Xbox One ports of the game were, the Switch port is expected to be another solid release.
