What is going on with WB Games’ strategy?

polygon.com:

Warner Bros. Games has been discussing its business strategy over the past several weeks, but it seems to be full of contradictions. Hogwarts Legacy, its AAA single-player Harry Potter game, was one of the top-selling games of 2023, but the company instead intends to focus on live-service and free-to-play games in the future, like its underperforming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. WB Games is reviving a game it took offline last year before unpublishing a suite of games that have been playable for years. That’s not to forget that the game that’s being revived, Super Smash Bros.-like brawler MultiVersus, features characters from several of Warner Bros.’ botched properties, like the Space Jam reboot, Black Adam, and a whole slate of Looney Tunes in the aftermath of Coyote vs. Acme.

It’s a few weeks that have left a lot of people asking: What is going on with WB Games’ strategy?

The company has been in a weird state of uncertainty for a while. Warner Bros. Games is part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment unit. It was previously known as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment before AT&T spun off WarnerMedia and merged it with Discovery to create the new company Warner Bros. Discovery. (Got all that?) For a while after the merger, the fate of Warner Bros.’ gaming division was unclear; AT&T originally told IGN that some of its game studios would be sold, but not all. In the end, only mobile developer Playdemic was sold off. (Before the merger, in 2020, AT&T was reportedly trying to sell off the gaming division for up to $4 billion, but the company ended up keeping it. That was, ultimately, a good decision, because games have “contributed strongly” to Warner Bros. Discovery’s finances.) But, like the rest of the industry, Warner Bros.’ games division exists during a period of volatility.

We’ve been getting a better idea of what’s going on recently. Warner Bros. Discovery streaming and games president and CEO Jean-Briac