If you want to know how ridiculously undervalued Warner Bros' gaming division is by Netflix, co-CEO, president, and director Gregory Peters stated that they didn't even factor in studios like Rocksteady or IPs like Hogwarts Legacy in their valuation of the $82.7 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
Speaking during a conference talking about the deal, Peters stated that while WB Games is by no means a failure, its successes are ultimately not important in the grand scheme of the deal.
Peters mentioned that Warner has done “great work in the game space, (but) we actually didn’t attribute any value to that from the get-go because they’re relatively minor compared to the grand scheme of things".
He acknowledged big hits like Hogwarts Legacy. The game has sold over 30 million copies and generated over $1 billion in revenue for WB Games as of December 2024. It's by no means a small feat; however, it dwarfs in comparison to other assets Netflix has its eyes on.
“Now we are super excited because some of those properties that they’ve built, Hogwarts is a great example of that, have been done quite well, and we think that we can incorporate that into what we’re offering. They’ve got great studios and great folks working there. So we think that there’s definitely an opportunity there. But just to be clear, we haven’t built that into our deal model.”
What this means for studios like Rocksteady, creators of the Arkham franchise, or NetherRealm Studios of Mortal Kombat fame, remains to be seen.
The deal is still not solidified in any case, as a new competitor has entered the fray: Paramount Skydance. Regardless of who ends up acquiring WB Discovery, we won't be seeing the ramifications of the decision in quite some time.