Warner Bros. gaming division no longer being sold off (update: info from internal communications, likely a misread, sale still probably likely)

[Minthara]

I don't think it matters who they sell too because WB will still retain the IP. It might factor in the price if they want to give temp licenses to the buyer but it's not that big a deal in the short term and certainly wouldn't be broad or all encompassing.

As for job losses, I don't think we can say much in that regard other than jobs would likely go in all situations.

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This isn't true.

We can say that AT&T seems to be (based off the TweakTown article) wanting to go the Disney route and are looking for an exclusive licensing partner, if that article is accurate - which I see no reason to doubt right now as it makes sense. So yes, if they are looking for an exclusive partner for video game development it absolutely matters who they sell to - they will want someone who can cover all their bases. Licensing agreements, as mentioned earlier, come with definitions of what platforms games are to be developed for, etc.

Warner Brothers Games currently has a large mobile presence that makes a lot of money - I have no doubt that would be included in the deal as well. It would make little sense to get "out" of the video game industry but keep mobile developers just cause, especially when you are trying to maximize sale value and minimize your overhead.

We also CAN also safely say that WB Games staying under AT&T would likely result in fewer job losses, see Matt's posts for more details, but the amount of people employed by WB Games in distribution, production, marketing, publishing, etc is extremely high and all those jobs WOULD be lost if WB Games was bought by another publisher. AT&T may downsize WB Games if they decide to keep them, but they would still need people filling those roles vs. those roles being lost entirely.

 

[Kill3r7]

Agree that the best thing for maximum jobs saved would be for them to stay where they are, but will being profitable shield them that much from the internal shake up? I ask because Blizzard had a lot of layoffs after a record year. Was that just a bit of an exception to the norm?

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A record year tells you about past performance. It says nothing about the future. If a company expects lower revenues in the coming year or fewer projects then they might downsize to keep labor costs low, knowing full well that they can expand if and when projects are further along in development.

 

[dlemarc]

This upcoming FanDome is the last hurrah of WB Games as we know it. I don't see any good options as far as gamers are concerned. Worst case is all of the developers being sold piecemeal and all current games in development cancelled. Best case is AT&T changing their minds, then making significant cuts, or getting bought whole by a gaming company, then that new company making cuts.

 

[AllBizness]

Another but larger AAA multiplatform publisher is a better fit to but them then a console maker. A console maker will need to trim a lot of fat which means lots of jobs lost.

 

[arkay]

How much would each ERA member have to contribute for us to buy WB Games?

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About tree fiddy

 

[jelly]

Doesn't exactly work great for Star Wars with EA?

As for job losses in those fields, what are the numbers, WB do everything in house, don't hire marketing companies?

It's hard to say if any one company would tick all your boxes or if AT&T actually care that one company does it. Why can't they license to two or three.

 

[Bear Cub in Sky]

Yeah, I'm more worried about actual people losing their jobs than xenophobia.

Everyone should hope WM keeps the unit. If you don't, your priorities are seriously messed up.

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That's not xenophobia. But thanks for jumping to conclusions.

 

[supercommodore]

A record year tells you about past performance. It says nothing about the future. If a company expects lower revenues in the coming year or fewer projects then they might downsize to keep labor costs low, knowing full well that they can expand if and when projects are further along in development.

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Yeah after a quick re-read of the Polygon article about Blizzard it does suggest they mismanaged their content pipeline and has a sparse lineup going forward. I don't really understand why they didn't put the teams to work on new projects.

Just weird to me coming from an industry where in these cases the loss of expertise would be far more damaging than taking a short term loss. From an outsider's perspective it just seems like another aspect of how life as a game dev is treacherous and how desperately the industry needs unionisation.

 

[SeanMN]

Not really. AT&T is getting a lot of pressure to refocus and pay down debt from shareholders, but killing profitable divisions for the sake of it doesn't help accomplish that. In fact, it hurts them more.

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Companies kill or sell off profitable divisions, products, IP, etc. all the time. It's never "for the sake of it," but instead due to a multitude of factors, one of them being that doing so (might) allow them to become more profitable in the future.

 

[Deleted member 43]

Companies kill or sell off profitable divisions, products, IP, etc. all the time. It's never "for the sake of it," but instead due to a multitude of factors, one of them being that doing so (might) allow them to become more profitable in the future.

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Right, but that doesn't really apply here...

 

[Tomacco]

Right, but that doesn't really apply here...

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I'm no expert, but could it not be as simple as they believe that someone else could do a better job of maximizing profits within the gaming sector of their IP?

In that case while it would be selling off a profitable division, in the long term it would increase profits

 

[supercommodore]

A layoff is generally about cutting back on staff, but WBIE would still need most or all of its "parts" to keep operating, so maybe some or all areas would lose some % of their headcount.

A sale would mean a number of teams get cut completely. 10% (or whatever) is awful, but it's still better than 100%.

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Oh yeah totally agree the across the board % cut would be preferable. Also probably allows them to recover faster during better times.

I assume none of the studios are looking to do a Bungie and go independent. Because Bungie left without their well known IP and got a publishing deal to fund Destiny pretty quickly.

 

[Deleted member 43]

I'm no expert, but could it not be as simple as they believe that someone else could do a better job of maximizing profits within the gaming sector of their IP?

In that case while it would be selling off a profitable division, in the long term it would increase profits

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Again, they are totally open to selling a profitable division. They just need to get the price they want for it.

It's not likely they will sell for a lot less than they believe the unit is worth, because the unit isn't a drain on the company.

 

[2shd]

It's a notable post worthy of a threadmark but not worthy of a thread title change IMHO.

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Mods can tweak the title as needed, but it needed to be updated to indicate that Eurogamer's conclusion was not definitive and the resulting drive-by "Good. For the best" posts were clouding discussion.

Also, have you watched that video? The points seem valid.

 

[Xadra]

I wasn't sure how trustable they are (dumb name for a website) but their articles seem well written, well researched and checking the author's Twitter page has led me to feel like they know what they are talking about.

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Also, Daniel Ahmad shared the article. What means is, at least, worth a read.

 

[vivftp]

It's not really a "perspective."

Out of the companies that have been reported to be in the mix, none of them would need any of the staff from the publishing, marketing, operations, distribution, etc. parts of the company, so all those people would be gone. On top of that, it's incredibly unlikely that any buyer would keep all the studios WBIE has, and in all likelihood around half of them would get cut, depending on who the buyer was.

Right now these people are employed during a global pandemic and economic downturn, and theoretically, all of them are employed because they have jobs to do. A sale would completely upend that, and keeping those people employed is the only thing that matters.

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Just pondering here, it was rumored when Sony was interested in Leyou that it was Sony itself and not Playstation that might make the purchase and it would be kept as a separate entity within Sony. I know the rumors for WB don't include Sony but do you think if they're interested it could be a similar deal to the Leyou thing? Would the majority of jobs be maintained if WB Games could operate as it's own entity under Sony?

 

[Xadra]

 

[2shd]

Yeah, that's all that email was. So many video game news sites ran with the headline that it's no longer up for sale, but there's no confirmation either way from that email.

A point made by that video and also that Jeff from Giant Bomb mentioned is that by pretty much leaving that division as-is could be argued that they're purposefully not touching it while shopping it around. Gutting something you're trying to sell is a bad idea.

For the emplyees there in WBIE, it's gotta be a pretty stressful situation as anuthing could still happen. I wonder what kind of time frame this could be.

 

[Azerth]

I qonder if when it comes to mk the buying company could say give us the games license but you keep the other licenses

 

[Kill3r7]

I qonder if when it comes to mk the buying company could say give us the games license but you keep the other licenses

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I don't think anyone is meeting their internal valuation. WB will have to sweeten the pot.

 

[Dreazy]

Not directly related but kinda, AT&T possibly selling off Crunchyroll to Sony ? They really are shopping everything

AT&T Wants $1.5 Billion in Crunchyroll Sale to Sony

AT&T is in discussions to sell WarnerMedia’s Crunchyroll Japanese anime-streaming service to Sony, according to three people familiar with the situation. If the two sides could reach a deal—which is far from certain—it would strengthen Sony’s position in the niche market, as it already owns a ...

www.theinformation.com

 

[koutoru]

Not directly related but kinda, AT&T possibly selling off Crunchyroll to Sony ? They really are shopping everything

AT&T Wants $1.5 Billion in Crunchyroll Sale to Sony

AT&T is in discussions to sell WarnerMedia’s Crunchyroll Japanese anime-streaming service to Sony, according to three people familiar with the situation. If the two sides could reach a deal—which is far from certain—it would strengthen Sony’s position in the niche market, as it already owns a ...

www.theinformation.com

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There were reports about this same thing back in May, but this is the first time we're hearing prices. Just like the price for WB Interactive, they're asking for a lot of money for these divisions.

 

[vivftp]

Not directly related but kinda, AT&T possibly selling off Crunchyroll to Sony ? They really are shopping everything

AT&T Wants $1.5 Billion in Crunchyroll Sale to Sony

AT&T is in discussions to sell WarnerMedia’s Crunchyroll Japanese anime-streaming service to Sony, according to three people familiar with the situation. If the two sides could reach a deal—which is far from certain—it would strengthen Sony’s position in the niche market, as it already owns a ...

www.theinformation.com

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Assuming WB Games is eventually going to be sold off to someone and IF Sony has any interest in them then maybe they can work out some sort of package deal with WB Games and Crunchyroll? If, as I posited a few posts up, it were Sony and not PlayStation doing the buying then maybe the could keep WB mostly intact under the Sony umbrella so the majority of people keep their jobs.

... or maybe they'd strip away all the employees they wouldn't need and integrate it into PlayStation, who knows... Curious if Sony is interested though. They were rumored to be putting a 1 billion+ bid on Leyou recently but Tencent has stepped in on that, putting things on hold while they negotiate with Leyou. If that option is completely dead in the water then Sony still has a bunch of cash burning a hole in their pocket earmarked for acquisitions so I wonder if they might go a bit bigger and aim for WB Games as instead.

The fate of all those employees is a whole discussion in itself, but as far as the games that WB would make I would trust Sony more than anyone else to let WB Games studios make the games that they want to make and not force-infuse them with unfavorable business practices. Sony's actually walked the walk in giving studios a ton of leeway to try new things and try to make their vision succeed, so from a content perspective I'd say things should be good there.

 

[justiceiro]

Glad for less consolidation on the industry, but working condition at Warner are awful, so nothing much to be happy about.

 

[Deleted member 52190]

Assuming WB Games is eventually going to be sold off to someone and IF Sony has any interest in them then maybe they can work out some sort of package deal with WB Games and Crunchyroll? If, as I posited a few posts up, it were Sony and not PlayStation doing the buying then maybe the could keep WB mostly intact under the Sony umbrella so the majority of people keep their jobs.

... or maybe they'd strip away all the employees they wouldn't need and integrate it into PlayStation, who knows... Curious if Sony is interested though. They were rumored to be putting a 1 billion+ bid on Leyou recently but Tencent has stepped in on that, putting things on hold while they negotiate with Leyou. If that option is completely dead in the water then Sony still has a bunch of cash burning a hole in their pocket earmarked for acquisitions so I wonder if they might go a bit bigger and aim for WB Games as instead.

The fate of all those employees is a whole discussion in itself, but as far as the games that WB would make I would trust Sony more than anyone else to let WB Games studios make the games that they want to make and not force-infuse them with unfavorable business practices. Sony's actually walked the walk in giving studios a ton of leeway to try new things and try to make their vision succeed, so from a content perspective I'd say things should be good there.

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A buyout from Sony whould put wb under Playstation control.

Sony with Spider Man and Batman is not a good idea.

 

[Sandfox]

Sony doesn't need to own everything.

 

[bastardly]

if sony somehow did buy wb and got gaming rights to their ip as well, ND can finally create the Superman game we never got, so ill allow it

 

[vivftp]

A buyout from Sony whould put wb under Playstation control.

Sony with Spider Man and Batman is not a good idea.

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IF it were put under PlayStation that could cause some potential friction... maybe.

As I noted in the post you quoted though there's the possibility of WB remaining a separate entity within Sony, which is what was rumored to occur if Sony acquired Leyou. Still under Sony but it could operate on its own outside of PlayStation.

Anyways, I was just pondering possibilities. It seemed like something that might be within the realm of possibility given that Sony's already negotiating with AT&T for one property and another major gaming publisher acquisition was recently cock-blocked by Tencent for Sony so they might set their eyes on another potential acquisition. As of right now there are no rumors or hints by anyone at all that Sony's even interested in WB Games. We'll have to wait and see if WB Games is even up for sale or not.

 

[Sausage_Poison]

Assuming WB Games is eventually going to be sold off to someone and IF Sony has any interest in them then maybe they can work out some sort of package deal with WB Games and Crunchyroll? If, as I posited a few posts up, it were Sony and not PlayStation doing the buying then maybe the could keep WB mostly intact under the Sony umbrella so the majority of people keep their jobs.

... or maybe they'd strip away all the employees they wouldn't need and integrate it into PlayStation, who knows... Curious if Sony is interested though. They were rumored to be putting a 1 billion+ bid on Leyou recently but Tencent has stepped in on that, putting things on hold while they negotiate with Leyou. If that option is completely dead in the water then Sony still has a bunch of cash burning a hole in their pocket earmarked for acquisitions so I wonder if they might go a bit bigger and aim for WB Games as instead.

The fate of all those employees is a whole discussion in itself, but as far as the games that WB would make I would trust Sony more than anyone else to let WB Games studios make the games that they want to make and not force-infuse them with unfavorable business practices. Sony's actually walked the walk in giving studios a ton of leeway to try new things and try to make their vision succeed, so from a content perspective I'd say things should be good there.

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That is very interesting but I don't think Sony is willing to spend a huge amount of money for studio acquisitions. Jim Ryan already expressed his wariness when it comes to studio acquisitions, saying that it is very expensive.

 

[Mandalorian]

Assuming WB Games is eventually going to be sold off to someone and IF Sony has any interest in them then maybe they can work out some sort of package deal with WB Games and Crunchyroll? If, as I posited a few posts up, it were Sony and not PlayStation doing the buying then maybe the could keep WB mostly intact under the Sony umbrella so the majority of people keep their jobs.

... or maybe they'd strip away all the employees they wouldn't need and integrate it into PlayStation, who knows... Curious if Sony is interested though. They were rumored to be putting a 1 billion+ bid on Leyou recently but Tencent has stepped in on that, putting things on hold while they negotiate with Leyou. If that option is completely dead in the water then Sony still has a bunch of cash burning a hole in their pocket earmarked for acquisitions so I wonder if they might go a bit bigger and aim for WB Games as instead.

The fate of all those employees is a whole discussion in itself, but as far as the games that WB would make I would trust Sony more than anyone else to let WB Games studios make the games that they want to make and not force-infuse them with unfavorable business practices. Sony's actually walked the walk in giving studios a ton of leeway to try new things and try to make their vision succeed, so from a content perspective I'd say things should be good there.

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With the mess that AT&T has been doing, I'd be happy if Sony could buy WB out of them. Question: would AT&T do it? My understanding is that WB Pictures, WB Games and even DC are nothing but a small part of what Time Warner actually is.

 

[vivftp]

That is very interesting but I don't think Sony is willing to spend a huge amount of money for studio acquisitions. Jim Ryan already expressed his wariness when it comes to studio acquisitions, saying that it is very expensive.

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Who knows. Sony (not PlayStation) was just recently said to be prepared to bid over a billion dollars to acquire Leyou. It's anyone's guess what the thought process is going on at both PlayStation and at Sony as a whole. I will say that Sony has been very, very willing to open their wallet for investments and acquisitions in the past 2+ years since their new CEO took over.

With the mess that AT&T has been doing, I'd be happy if Sony could buy WB out of them. Question: would AT&T do it? My understanding is that WB Pictures, WB Games and even DC are nothing but a small part of what Time Warner actually is.

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*shrug*
I guess we'll wait and see if they are actually selling off WB games, or parts of them or if they decide not to sell at all. People have said AT&T wants to hammer down their debt so maybe they will decide to sell to someone.

 

[Desodeset]

Who knows. Sony (not PlayStation) was just recently said to be prepared to bid over a billion dollars to acquire Leyou. It's anyone's guess what the thought process is going on at both PlayStation and at Sony as a whole. I will say that Sony has been very, very willing to open their wallet for investments and acquisitions in the past 2+ years since their new CEO took over.



*shrug*
I guess we'll wait and see if they are actually selling off WB games, or parts of them or if they decide not to sell at all. People have said AT&T wants to hammer down their debt so maybe they will decide to sell to someone.

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Sony Corp definitely wants to expand it's Picture division, but i really doubt that AT&T will sell Warner Bros. After all they need content for their HBO service.

 

[vivftp]

Sony Corp definitely wants to expand it's Picture division, but i really doubt that AT&T will sell Warner Bros. After all they need content for their HBO service.

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?
We're talking about WB Games, not all of Warner Bros