Warner Bros. says it's focusing on transforming its biggest franchises into live service games
As part of its latest earnings call, Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav has outlined the company's plans to transform its biggest gaming franchises from traditional console and PC releases into «always on» live service games.
Zaslav made the comments during his opening remarks to investors, in which referred to several of the company's franchises — Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Batman, and Mortal Kombat — as $1bn gaming properties. Mortal Kombat 1, he noted, has sold nearly 3m copies since launching in mid-September.
«Our focus,» he continued, «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.»
«Ultimately we want to drive engagement and monetisation of longer cycles and at higher levels,» he continued. «We are currently under scale and see significant opportunity to generate greater post purchase revenue.»
Warner Bros' most recent attempt at adapting one of its major franchises into a live service game, the free-to-play Mortal Kombat: Onslaught, launched for iOS and Android at the end of October. The company's free-to-play hero fighter, MultiVersus, which featured a huge range of playable characters from across its various franchises, enjoyed significant interest when it launched into open beta last summer, but was pulled offline earlier this year amid dwindling players numbers, with promises that a full release would occur in 2024.
As far as its tentpole console and PC releases go, Rocksteady's upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League looks to be Warner Bros' first serious
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