Warner Bros. reportedly weighing the sale of WB Games stake

Warner Bros. Discovery is desperate for cash

WB Games

Warner Bros. Discovery, the group owning properties like HBO, CNN, and WB Games, may be looking for some partners to share its video game business with. According to Financial Times, the debt-ridden company is desperately looking for a cash-injection and is considering selling a stake in WB Games to get one. This would likely allow the company to avoid pulling its “nuclear” option of an asset break-up, the report stated.

WB Games recently acquired MultiVersus developer Player First to expand its capabilities in this area further.

2023’s release of Hogwarts Legacy was a massive success for the company, prompting leaders of the organization to praise its video game division and demand a pivot into even more lucrative live-service games while at the same time as denying that its upcoming triple-A Wonder Woman title would follow that business model. That order turned out to be massive failure anyways with the botched release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League reportedly burning through a $200 million USD budget.

This experience, in turn, seems to have prompted yet another weird strategy shift – this time in favor of free-to-play mobile games.

It seems like Warner Bros. doesn’t really know what to do with its video game division and this lack of direction is reinforced by the refusal to learn from the immense success of single-player title Hogwarts Legacy, which became 2023’s best-selling video game.

Selling a stake in the business to someone who actually knows what they’re doing could prove to be beneficial for everyone, provided they’re being listened to. There is no information currently on who might even be interested in entering such a partnership – with the games industry fighting off its own woes, cash is in short supply for everybody.