Warner Bros.’ Hogwarts Legacy is based on the company’s Wizarding World IP and was the best-selling game of 2023.

Warner Bros. Discovery plans to leverage its intellectual property to launch more video games based on its biggest franchises, the company said in its second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. In addition to developing games in-house, Warner Bros. is also looking to license its IP to other studios. Warner Bros.’ Hogwarts Legacy, based on the company’s Wizarding World IP, was the best-selling game of 2023, but few Warner Bros. assets have been fully utilized in the gaming medium .

During a Q&A on Warner Bros. Discovery’s second-quarter 2024 earnings call (first reported by IGN), CEO David Zaslav said there’s “a lot of interest” among outside parties in turning Warner Bros. IP into video games. “We have 11 studios, we have a lot of IP,” Zaslav said on the call. “And there’s a lot of people who are interested in leveraging some of that IP into games, and we’re looking at that,” he added.

JB Perret also noted that Warner Bros. franchises are “high in demand,” which could help with new game launches. The exec also cited the free-to-play segment of games as an area of focus for the company, which has seen mixed results with its AAA first-party titles.

Last year, Hogwarts Legacy, based on the popular Harry Potter series, sold more than 22 million copies, making it the biggest game of 2023. However, in 2024, Warner Bros. Games released Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which was a critical and commercial failure, causing Warner Bros. games revenue to fall 41% in the second quarter of 2024.

“We need great games, but the reality is … in the space of just 12 months, we went from having a record year in 2023 with Hogwarts Legacy to, unfortunately, the opposite with Suicide Squad,” Perrette said on the earnings call.

Zaslav and Perret were responding to questions about the “uneven performance” of WB’s games over the past few years, the “strategic value” of video games to the conglomerate and whether the company sees games as a core part of its vast portfolio.

Warner Bros. Games, a division of Warner Bros. Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment, has released games based on popular Warner Bros. franchises such as Batman and Harry Potter, but many of the company’s biggest titles, such as Game of Thrones and Superman, remain underutilized when it comes to interactive media.

According to Zaslav , the company needs to change that and realize the full potential of its IP as video games : “… we have to get bigger. The IP that we own and the value it has in the gaming industry is something that we want to leverage,” he said in response to a question.

Warner Bros. said during its third-quarter earnings call in November 2023 that it would focus on turning its biggest franchises into live-service games and extending the lifecycle of its releases. “Ultimately, we want to drive engagement and monetization at higher levels over longer cycles,” Zaslav said at the time. “We currently lack scale and see a significant opportunity to drive additional post-purchase revenue.”

Warner Bros. made its biggest bet on the live service model earlier this year with the release of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, with plans to add content post-launch. However, the game faced criticism over its live service model and poor sales led Warner Bros. to take a $200 million loss on the title. In our own review, we felt the game was handicapped by Rocksteady’s decision to move away from its expertise in single-player story – driven titles .

However, in March of this year, Warner Bros. reiterated its commitment to a live service model for gaming, despite Suicide Squad’s subpar critical and commercial performance.

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