Warner Bros. has released its financial summary for both the fourth quarter of 2024 and the year as a whole, and it probably won't surprise you to learn that it's been a pretty bad year for the media giant's gaming wing.
In its earnings release, Warner Bros. says its gaming division's revenue dropped by 29% in Q4 when compared to the previous year's quarter, which the studio puts down to the "better performance" of big sellers Hogwarts Legacy and Mortal Kombat 1 last year.
This is likely at least one of the figures that caused Warner Bros. to close three of its studios recently, namely Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and WB San Diego. They're not mentioned in the financial report, but that could just be because the report covers the period ending December 31st last year.
The weak performance of two major Warner Bros. games last year, namely superhero live-service looter-shooter Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and crossover fighter MultiVersus, both contributed to WB Games' weak year.
Both games performed so poorly that they were shut down before being on general release for a year (although MultiVersus technically spent some time in a sort of beta-Early Access limbo between mid-2022 and spring 2023).
Back in January, it was revealed that Warner Bros. gaming head David Haddad would step down after over a decade with the company. The reason for his departure wasn't officially announced, but I can't imagine Suicide Squad and MultiVersus' failures had nothing to do with it.
As for what the future holds for Warner Bros., the company says it's planning to refocus on "proven IP" like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat, and the wider DC universe, including "top tier characters like Batman".
To that end, it was recently revealed that DC Studios boss James Gunn has been talking to Warner Bros. studios Rocksteady and NetherRealm to develop DC games, although it's not clear which games those might be.
Given that the closure of Monolith also includes the cancellation of that studio's Wonder Woman game, though, I wouldn't hold your breath for anything but a new game starring Batman or one of his extended family. Stay tuned for more.
