WB Games restructured as Warner Bros Discovery breaks up

WB Games gets restructured with new leadership and content focus while its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery, plans to split in two parts.

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Following an expensive multi-year merger, Warner Bros Discovery is breaking up, and that means big changes across all segments. WB Discovery will split into two groups: Global Networks and Streaming & Studios, and WB's games division will be nestled under the studios branch. So...how will all of this affect gaming?

WB Games will now focus on four core billion-dollar IPs: DC (primarily Batman and Superman), Mortal Kombat, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones. The entire video games unit is effectively being restructured and bifurcated to work on these franchises.

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Yves Lachance, former WB Games Montreal studio head, will lead as senior vice president over teams working on Harry Potter and Game of Thrones games.

Shaun Himmerick, former NetherRealm studios head, will lead as senior vice president over the Mortal Kombat and DC teams.

Seven Flenory, who founded WB Games New York and served as studio head, will now serve as senior vice president of technology and services, overseeing critical functions like publishing.

Streaming & Studios will be helmed by current WB Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

WB Games' new arrangement isn't a surprise. Weeks ago, Zaslav told investors that the games branch would now focus on a "fewer but bigger" strategy for game releases. This plan zoomed closely in on WB's most lucrative series--the same four IPs that are outlined above.

WB investors are eager to avoid more disastrous losses like those that plagued the ill-fated Suicide Squad live service game. This product did so bad that it contributed substantially to an eye-watering $384 million operating loss for Warner Bros. Games.

This loss prompted WB Discovery to cancel games and even shut down an entire video games studio that had been in the industry for decades. After the losses were announced, management cancelled a new Wonder Woman game and shut down the studio making it, Monolith Productions.

Monolith had been responsible for hits like popular gen 8 Middle-earth Shadow of War and Shadow of Mordor games as well as the older FEAR first-person shooter series from the 2000s.

The WB Games division is more than capable of delivering billions in revenue, though; Hogwarts Legacy made over $1 billion in sales in little over four months, with 15 million copies sold at the time. And that was before the launch of the Nintendo Switch version of the game.