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Rumour WB Discovery shopping their game development studios around, interested parties include EA, Take-Two, Microsoft, Sony, Tencent, etc

Rainbow said:
Do the buyers just get the studios, but bot the IP's?
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WB studios pretty much all work on WB/DC IPs that originated outside of games. it makes no sense to sell those IPs to someone because they bought the studios working on related games. a deal that makes sense is a long time licensing agreement where they sign away gaming rights to those IPs (kinda like how CD project doesn't own the witcher or cyberpunk IPs but owns the exclusive gaming rights).
the one exception is mortal kombat i guess but even that i can see WB discovery wanting to hold on to for films/merch/etc.
 
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EA feels like the best fit although aside from Star Wars they haven't really dabbled with licensed properties on consoles/PC in a long time which has been TTs wheelhouse for years. They do lack a fighting game franchise so if NetherRealm is included that would shore up their portfolio a bit.

That said, this feels like it's mostly borne out of WB Discovery continuing to flail around while being a bit lost in the woods in terms of an overall vision (ie. CNN+ spectacularly flopping hard), is that a semi-accurate read?
 
shoptroll said:
EA feels like the best fit although aside from Star Wars they haven't really dabbled with licensed properties on consoles/PC in a long time which has been TTs wheelhouse for years. They do lack a fighting game franchise so if NetherRealm is included that would shore up their portfolio a bit.

That said, this feels like it's mostly borne out of WB Discovery continuing to flail around while being a bit lost in the woods in terms of an overall vision (ie. CNN+ spectacularly flopping hard), is that a semi-accurate read?
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Iirc there was talk about selling off the gaming division even before the merger but perhaps the current state of WBD is accelerating these plans.
 
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I’d be okay with EA, Microsoft, or Sony snatching them up. But without the IP they won’t be worth much.
 
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I don't think any of the studios would want to go to a publisher who's not willing to give any freedom, especially Netherrealm.

I can see Netherrealm knocking some Chinese doors to keep getting funded well enough.
The rest is a little tricky, none of the studios have own IP portfolio at all. Traveller's Tales without Lego or Rocksteady without Batman might not be useful to many. Except... Take Two.
 
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WB has run too fast trying to match Disney, and the stock is in bad shape. They need to cut costs and generate some "on paper" revenue - sales of the studios + licensing deals would make the stock look better, though I'm not sure that long term WB doesn't want to keep at least a couple studios.

WB probably keeps the Mortal Kombat IP regardless of what happens to NetherRealm, as it has become a Media Franchise.
 
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Rocksteady feels like a studio Sony should snap up, green light them to make their own IP.

Travellers Tales could do independent maybe
 
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If WB ends up selling Netherrealm to Microsoft and they're the ones who end up developing the next KI, I'm going to be laughing for days.
 
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Zaslav promised his investors that Warner-Discovery will sell a few assets to save $3 billion in cost savings.

The most likely assets would be "The CW" and Warner's gaming division.

Zaslav is also a very old-school, traditional media executive. He doesn't know much or care about video games.
 
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They really should just keep it. Gaming is big business and another company gobbling up their gaming division will just consolidate the industry further.
 
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My guess would be:

Netherrealm -> Netease or Tencent (Netease more likely)
Monolith - > Microsoft
Avalanche -> Microsoft
Traveller's Tales -> Take Two
Rocksteady -> Embracer
Montreal Studio -> I feel the best option for them is to join Ubi Motreal.

They'll keep the WB IP's and give Midway legacy to Netherrealm. Legacy games like Batman Arkham series will probably get stuck in licensing limbo and Switch will never get that Arkham Collection.
 
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shoptroll said:
That said, this feels like it's mostly borne out of WB Discovery continuing to flail around while being a bit lost in the woods in terms of an overall vision (ie. CNN+ spectacularly flopping hard), is that a semi-accurate read?
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The new company leadership (who didn’t even want CNN+ to launch; that’s why they pulled the plug so quickly) have promised billions in cost savings to investors. Game development is not in WBD’s core industry of filmed entertainment and WB Games has been a bit of a money pit. It’s not terribly hard to see why WBD might want an exit.
 
shoptroll said:
That said, this feels like it's mostly borne out of WB Discovery continuing to flail around while being a bit lost in the woods in terms of an overall vision (ie. CNN+ spectacularly flopping hard), is that a semi-accurate read?
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Warner-Discovery is basically trying to fix the mistakes of the old Warner management (AT&T, Jason Kilar).

Discovery's management always hated CNN+, and they killed it as soon as the Warner-Discovery merger finalized. The new CEO, David Zaslav, is also notorious for being a cost-cutter. He doesn't like spending lots of money.
 
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Not surprised if this is the next big industry acquisition. I certainly expected this one to happen before Activision happened anyways.

The question to me is do they sell Mortal Kombat. It's an IP born as a video game and I feel it would be odd to not give the purchaser a single bone in terms of IP.

Hopefully no trouble would come to the division's upcoming slate of games. They're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on some games that have been in development for ages now like Gotham Knights and the wizard poop game.
 
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Netherrealm > 2K or EA makes sense here as they would like to have fighting game in their catalogue and NR produce a game every 2 to 3 years.
Traveller's Tales > 2K or Embrancer Group, 2K is rumoured to be wokring on several sports lego games so why not buy the dev to work on other non-sports lego games. Embrancer Group is looking to acquire more studios and have release or working on several games for a younger audience such as SpongeBob so getting TT Games working on games for a younger audience either lego or not would be benifical for them.
Rocksteady > PlayStation Studios, we know they have a great relationship with Marvel atm tho I dont think Insomiac wants to be known as SuperHero/Marvel studio in a couple of years time Rocksteady could feel that void for them they have made several super hero games before.
Avalanche > Same as point as Traveller's Tales.
Montreal Studio > EA, they have several studios in Canada atm they will probably be merged with Motive.
Monolith > Ubisoft, EA or 2K, Have made 2 sucesfull open world games having a studio that can produce quality open world game in a timely matter would be benifical.

I havent mentioned Xbox because its unlikely they will purchase any studio's until June 2023 seems WB is keen to sell these off fast. We know Nintendo does its own thing but out of these studios Traveller's Tales would be a good fit for them and having Nintendo to be the place to only play Lego games would be attractive for the system.
 
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Selling the studios without the IPs seems like kind of a bad deal.

That said, Nintendo buying Monolith Productions would be very funny. Not happening, but the hypothetical amuses me.
 
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If the Mortal Kombat IP is sold alongside Netherrealm (not a guarantee, I believe) that'd at least add some attractiveness to them. Same applies to Monolith even if most of their titles in the past decade are licenced Warner properties.

I think Rocksteady could adapt decently well without the licenced IPs; their games perform well critically so their studio name has good association; but i'm not too confident in TT Games or Avalanche having much staying power without them. I guess that's what they get for dealing with Rowling :)
 
MondoMega said:
If the Mortal Kombat IP is sold alongside Netherrealm (not a guarantee, I believe) that'd at least add some attractiveness to them. Same applies to Monolith even if most of their titles in the past decade are licenced Warner properties.

I think Rocksteady could adapt decently well without the licenced IPs; their games perform well critically so their studio name has good association; but i'm not too confident in TT Games or Avalanche having much staying power without them. I guess that's what they get for dealing with Rowling :)
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Rocksteady hasn’t released a game in a long time. I’m not sure I can say with confidence they’ll adapt.

I don’t think WB will sell the Mortal Kombat IP either. It does well outside of games too. That movie was success I think.
 
DecoReturns said:
Rocksteady hasn’t released a game in a long time. I’m not sure I can say with confidence they’ll adapt.
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Hey, Nintendo fans give Retro Studios a break for that; and Rocksteady will probably end up releasing their next brand new (not a remaster) game first anyway!
 
MondoMega said:
Hey, Nintendo fans give Retro Studios a break for that; and Rocksteady will probably end up releasing their next brand new (not a remaster) game first anyway!
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I should mentioned Retro like I thought to avoid a response saying retro.

My issue were more on the management and workplace which have been called awful at Rocksteady.
 
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MMXZero said:
And of course Nintendo isn't interested.
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Why would they be? If the rumours are true then the studios & ip are separate. That’s like the worst case for Nintendo either way. Either they get a studio with nothing attached to their name, all the problems, & employee turnover; or they get to license an ip with no one to make it & without owning it.

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I doubt I'm alone, but I hope the stars align and Nintendo if anyone gets TT Games. They worked together on Lego City Undercover (granted, that was the FF Fusion team but still), but I just don't see how TT Games can survive in today's climate intact otherwise. They're not known for major IPs other than Lego which begins and ends with whatever Lego Group decides from then on out. They were big in the licensed game back in the 90's and 2000's before becoming exclusively Lego makers, but by and large those just aren't as common these days.

They could graduate to working on some Nintendo franchises if Nintendo wanted to grab them and maybe actually give them a shot at a new IP. I mean the only IP under their wing was Haven: Call of the King (which from NitroRad's review, SURELY was at one point pitched as a Jak game ala their Crash games but got turned down, had to be).
Dark Cloud said:
Nintendo can finally get Monolith west…
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I want this to happen to badly, or just ONCE see Nintendo and Monolith Productions collab. Would turn heads so hard, I'd adore that so much! LOL
 
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Tentacle-tropes said:
Why would they be? If the rumours are true then the studios & ip are separate. That’s like the worst case for Nintendo either way. Either they get a studio with nothing attached to their name, all the problems, & employee turnover; or they get to license an ip with no one to make it & without owning it.

Edit:
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Nintendo should license the Batman IP. Then they could make a Batman game that plays like Zelda.
 
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The Mortal Kombat conundrum is easy to settle: IP is sold with Netherrealm (as I imagine Boon wouldn't have it any other way), while WBD writes into the contract that they have non-revokable TV/movie/comic rights. Then everyone gets what they want.

But the studios (arguably) made good games irrespective of the IP they were based on, so I see why there's interest, especially more than the last deal they tried to get done for ALL of WBIE's assets.
 
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I think TT Games might be a good team to tackle Banjo-Kazooie (they do well with charming platforming-ish games with humor and they’re even British like Rare to boot) so I don’t think I’d mind terribly if Microsoft picked them up. Microsoft sort of has more IP than they have studios to utilize, so a consistent studio might be a good pickup for them even if it doesn’t come with IP.

That said, I kind of think they might avoid making any moves for a while because they don’t want to do anything that might rock the boat with their ABK acquisition.
 
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