I can’t fathom the talk of Ubi, EA and T2 either – or the desire – publishers this big are never going to be bought by Sony or have their games moneyhatted, so what do Xbox gamers gain by the purchase?
Warner is a bit different though, as we know (or at least it was widely reported) that talks existed and collapsed over price and licences included not long ago. They are being shifted to Disovery who may be more amenable to talks once complete – so it’s not a ridiculous speclation to think something might happen there in the future once the deal closes. I guess it just depends on whether Discovery really cares about a side business in videogames or not.
It is also just objectively smaller than the others, and more in the territory where you could see Sony paying them to keep games off Xbox, and therefore some reason MS might want to act to secure them for themselves. In terms of what they get, Netherrealm would seem to fill an important gap in fighting games, TT in family friendly, and whether or not they get the licence, Rocksteady is a good team.
I guess it all comes down to price and licencing again. They are not worth as much as WB were asking without any licences, but they’d still be worth it at the right price.
I think it’s kind of ridiculous that WB parent company reportedly thought the studios were worth $4bn with no IP or licences at all. I think there’s still a good value in getting those teams without the licences (although the MK IP is absolutely a deal breaker for any deal), the price has to reflect the terms of the deal.
Zenimax was $7bn with a treasure trove of some of the biggest IP in gaming, like Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom, alongside publishing rights to all past games, a handful of engines, cloud gaming tech. No way WB studios without IP or licences are worth more than half that deal.
Maybe Discovery will be more reasonable, if it turns out they are interested in offloading the gaming division. Will have to wait and see.
I have to imagine WB is looking at what Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm have been doing (licensing out their IPs with chosen partners) and thinking that’s a good way to go forward. They don’t have to pay the labor costs, they still get oversight on the project, and they get paid in advance for the licenses.
That’s why I think WB Games will be sold off (hopefully to Microsoft) but…what do I know? I’m just an idiot on the Internet, much like the rest of you…
(here comes @Hindle to tell me why I’m wrong and why Microsoft is better off buying Valve/CDPR…)
Would make sense. Having their own game studios means they get all the profit, buy they also have to make all the investment and take all the risk on a flop.
The way these licencing deals work, the licencer gets paid whatever happens, an agreed minimum, and a percentage of everything above it. Disney licencing out Marvel, Star Wars and Lucas stuff can’t lose and the worst that happens they win a bit less than if they had their own studios. Can imagine Discovery wanting a bit of the same action when they take over.
The ownership is in full flux there. We just have to wait and watch.
wbdiscovery = 71% at&t and 29% discovery.
Ideally, a better and firmer ownership would decide one way (like your suggestion) or the other (keep things in-house). But with this kind of structure - we JUST don’t know what they will be up to.
They are a small time publisher plus distributor with maybe 300m revenue. We might be talking a little more or equal to Sumo Digital and Gearbox levels. My guess.
Difficult to figure out as they are under Nordisk Films Interactive.
