So I’ve seen all the stuff about Warner Bros. Game Studios possibly being up for sale, and some saying that a bidding war will happen if they do.
How does bidding for this sort of thing go though?
Does anyone know?
Like… Do they get all the companies like Microsoft, EA, and so on into a room, and they hold up a number to put in a bid?
Do they each submit an offer, and only one offer each that only they and Warner Bros. Discovery see, and Warner Bros. Discovery accept the highest one?
How does it work exactly? I’m sorry if this is a stupid question
The thing with MS is that they can alway sneak in other deal sweeteners on top of straight up cash in the “bidding war”. Cloud infrastructure deals for HBO Max for example, MS Office Suite, and other enterprise services.
If Microsoft ends up buying piecemeal, then the below list makes the most sense:
Netherrealm
TT Games
Monolith
1 - Netherrealm is obvious, they provide MS with a studio that not only can create and maintain Killer Instinct, but they would bring along arguably one of the best fighting games inhouse in Mortal Kombat.
2 - Family friendly content is still lacking on Xbox and will be needed for Game Pass to succeed. TT Games fills that need perfectly, even without the LEGO license. With Rare, Double Fine, Vicarious Visions (whatever they are called now), Toys for Bob, Beenox, and TT Games potentially under one roof, that would be a solid lineup of Studios to produce great family friendly titles.
3 - Monolith is the most underrated studio WB has IMO. They have shown over their studios existence to be a versatile game developer making great FPS like No One Lives Forever, FEAR and Condemned, to action-adventure titles like Shadow of Mordor and the upcoming Wonder Woman.
I highly doubt that all of Warner Bros Gaming is up for sale to be quite honest. I believe this coincides with the initiative that WBD’s CEO announced to trim over 3 billion dollars in annual operating costs. They’ll evaluate and determine where throughout the company to trim that money. Look for studios that are particularly inefficient and have lots of employees. Rocksteady (~300 employee) would be the first one that I’d think of, particularly once they release their game next year. Monolith (~250) falls into this category as well.
Take-Two only has licensed Lego for making sports/racing lego games. Lego intends to more broadly use their IP in the market per what they’ve said. Basically leaving the Lego license open to many studios like Disney did with Star Wars.
I figure that Microsoft and Take Two probably have a pretty good idea on whether or not they can make more acquisitions right now, they are the ones with a team of experts on this precise subject after all. So if Microsoft and Take Two are noted as interested parties they probably can buy something.
Also I’m curious just how expensive the total WB Games would be. I remember back prior to the WB Discovery merger they were looking to sell the whole lot for 4 billion (and that was prior to selling Playdemic). Obviously the market is in a different place now but we are still talking about a set of studios mostly without IPs (This part is unclear but the report was that they would “license IPs”). I would guess gaming specific IPs would be included like Mortal Kombat and some inactive stuff like FEAR.
Also fun part I looked up the reports from a few years ago and they talked about how the 4 billion dollars would be a hefty asking price. Lol.
At this point I don’t think WB/Discovery will be surrendering any of their IP. The new Discovery leadership see’s the worth of their IP and have even said they would like to bring back Superman to public masses. MK was their most popular HBO Max movie. Don’t think they’ll be parting with the IP now that they see how big it is.
I all honesty they will most likely turn to licensing out their properties to developers like Marvel and Lucas Film Games is currently doing.
The question is, are there studios worth the money? The articles flying around state they want 3 billion for their studios. Not sure if it’s worth it in all honesty.
While all those studios are pretty talented the one that stands out the most is NetherRealm. It’s nearly impossible to gain fighting game talent especially here in the United States. NetherRealm is priceless.
Best way to extract value. Sell someone like monolith with the rights to the new wonderwomen game along with maybe two follow ups so you get a guaranteed trilogy and your going to get a ton more money
