Former Monolith CEO Jason Hall has been appointed head of a new Warner Bros. division, which aims to get the movie giant into gaming in a big way. Currently, Warner sell-off their lucrative film licences to the biggest players (like EA), but having seen many of them turned to digital gold (Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings spring to mind), the company clearly feel now is the time to get into interactive entertainment in a big way.

This will commence with the company bringing its many licences in-house, both in terms of development and publishing, and will lead to a massive expansion of the new division, as the company aims to rapidly establish itself as a major player in the industry. This may include the acquisition of other development studios, as well as the creation of in-house developers.

“Historically, gaming for the studio has been licensing driven,” enthused Warner’s Dan Romanelli. “We have developed relationships with the best interactive gaming partners in the world and, together, we have taken the license model to new levels. We now have the opportunity to broaden our point-of-view, diversify our business approach, bring added value to our partners that will increase our mutual successes and with Warner Bros Games create a brand with consumers in the gaming world that is synonymous with the excellence behind the Warner Bros Shield.”

Quite whether this new involvement will see a shift in the firm’s various partnerships with the likes of EA, Atari and Ubisoft is at this point unknown, what is obvious is that Warner are certainly after a bigger slice of the pie they clearly feel they’ve been baking with their hugely potent licences – if you’ll pardon my terrible metaphor.

Written By Luke Guttridge http://www.ferrago.co.uk/story/2755

Filed under: News

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