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For the first time in over a decade, the best selling video game in a calendar year was not called Call Of Duty, Grand Theft Auto or FIFA. It was called Hogwarts Legacy.
The Harry Potter spin-off surpassed 22 million copies sold in 2023 (now at 24 million), and on top of Mortal Kombat 1’s own 3 million plus sales, Warner Bros and chief executive officer David Zaslav are waking up to how much money they could make in games.
WB Interactive president David Haddad and WB Discovery chief executive officer of global streaming and gaming JB Perrette spoke in a recent Variety interview about just how they think they can become a big games industry publisher, with Harry Potter, DC, Game Of Thrones and Mortal Kombat games leading the charge.
Zaslav and other high-ranking WB executives also spoke about how eager the company is to invest more into its games division, to grow it further during its most recent quarterly earnings call.
“I’ve double – and triple-checked some of the metrics here because it’s such a great investment opportunity,” said chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels.
Wiedenfels even went on to say that he was “stunned that we haven’t been investing more into this opportunity. We’re going to start tackling that.”
For Haddad, it’s about continually fighting this ‘attention economy’ on multiple fronts, keeping the companies IP’s consistently in consumers minds.
“A very consistent message coming from the executive layer of Warner Bros. Discovery is the importance of franchises.
There’s a unique and important role games have in keeping our franchises relevant, resonant and exciting, because there’s plenty of fans and plenty of people consuming content where games are their starting point.”
Source – [Variety]
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