Warner Bros. Wants to Turn Biggest Franchises into Live-Service Games
A Warner Bros. executive reveals that the company plans to turn its most important franchises into live services, supporting them for longer periods.
gamerant.com
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.
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.
