It's been rumoured for months now that AT&T might be looking to offload its Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment gaming division due to debt issues - with a suggestion that Microsoft was interested in purchasing it at one point - but now it appears as though it's staying put.
This is being reported by Bloomberg, which says the company decided it was "too valuable to unload during its effort to pay down debt and streamline," according to people familiar with the situation.
Few other details have been provided, but the website's sources told the outlet that AT&T had balked at the idea given the business’s growth potential.
It's also speculated that various factors could have influenced the decision, such as the upcoming release of an unannounced and potentially popular Harry Potter game, as well as the difficulty of selling the business due to some games containing licensed content with long-term strings attached.
How do you feel about WB Interactive Entertainment staying put? Let us know in the comments.
[source bloomberg.com]
Comments 6
Good, there games are fine as they are and would of been ruined in EA's or Ubisofts hands
Aka no one would pay what we wanted
Rather it stays put than go to the potential buyers, only MS sounded like a good candidate but would had meant platform lockins.
I think part of the reason for all this might had been WBGames has releases very little in the last two years, that might had made ATT feel it was not carrying its weight. But now they got big titles lined up for the next 2 years, between Gotham Knights, Suicide Squad, Harry Potter and the biggest Lego game to date. I'm sure if any of these flops big, we will be back at this once more.
I was also interested at one point as well.
In other words..... nobody wanted to pay 4 billion for several game development studios & only the Mortal Kombat IP.
@KelticDevil from some article I saw somewhere even Mortal Kombat was off the table because they wanted to retain all IP rights for anything from movies to game royalties to toys.
Honestly the deal was starting to sound like Disney not wanting to make games anymore, just license their stuff, but instead of closing studios somehow expect they could sell them despite not selling any IP...
Much more viable to just punch talent away.
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