Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment The foundation of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) under
Warner Bros. was announced on January 14, 2004, along with the
WB Games (Warner Bros. Games) brand, under which WBIE would publish games.
Jason Hall, previously of
Monolith Productions, was named as its
senior vice president. Before this, the Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment brand was used by
Warner Bros. Consumer Products for licensing purposes since 1995 with the
video game tie-in of
Batman Forever. The name was initially used as a brand name of WBCP. In 2003, Warner Bros. co-published its first title
Looney Tunes: Back in Action as part of a partnership with the
Electronic Arts subsidiary EA Distribution, becoming the first title published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In August, Warner Bros. purchased
Monolith Productions, becoming its first self-owned game developer. In 2005, the first game that Monolith developed in conjunction with Warner Bros. was
The Matrix Online, which
Sega helped co-publish. In July, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced the release of its first self-published title,
Friends: The One with All the Trivia, for
Microsoft Windows and the
PlayStation 2, on November 15, 2005. The game would be distributed through
Warner Home Video, and would tie-in with the release of the
Friends complete series DVD boxset. In October, Warner Bros. created
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and WBIE was transferred as part of it. In December 2006, WBIE entered in a North American distribution deal with British game publisher
Codemasters. Also within that month, Warner Bros. Games invested a 10.3% stake in
SCi Entertainment, the owner of
Eidos Interactive. The deal also included a licensing deal for Eidos to develop and publish titles based on select
DC Comics properties (Comic book
Batman and
Legion of Super Heroes),
Looney Tunes (including
Loonatics Unleashed),
Hanna-Barbera and
The O.C.. In 2007, it implemented a five-year plan, the goal of which was to expand in the
video game industry and included the acquisition of studios for internal development and the creation of a studio (WB Games) in the
Seattle area that will run all the games
published and
developed by the company; the first acquisition under this plan was Britain's
TT Games that same year, for £100 million. The deal included the publishing division of the company, developers
Traveller's Tales and TT Fusion, motion capture studio TT Centroid, and animation studio TT Animation. In April 2008, Warner Bros. announced that it had increased its stake in SCi Entertainment to 35%, allowing WBIE to distribute Eidos Interactive titles in North America. On December 15, 2008, shortly after SCi changed its name to
Eidos plc, Warner acquired a total of 10 million shares of the company, raising its owned amount to 19.92%, after an agreement which prevented Time Warner from acquiring more shares was scrapped one month earlier. On January 28, 2009,
The Hollywood Reporter reported the deal also gave Warner the rights of the
Tomb Raider film series, previously owned by
Paramount Pictures. On February 12, 2009, Warner Bros. backed
Square Enix's acquisition offer worth £84.3 million for Eidos plc as majority stakeholder. On February 4, 2009, WBIT purchased
Snowblind Studios. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition serves to strengthen the publisher's internal development effort. In August 2009, Warner announced that it would purchase a majority of the assets of American publisher
Midway Games, operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, for $49 million. The assets purchased include Midway's studio in Chicago and
Surreal Software, resulting in the ownership to the rights to the
Joust,
Mortal Kombat,
The Suffering,
Spy Hunter and
Wheelman series, as well as the library of the former
Atari Games, which had previously been owned by Time Warner. Midway had previously worked with Warner Bros. on several games, including
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Midway intended to hold an auction of its assets on June 29, 2009, but no other bids were placed. On July 10, the sale to Warner was completed for approximately . In the process, Warner became the owner of the
Blitz: The League series. On July 28, 2009, Midway's
Mortal Kombat team was rebranded
WB Games Chicago. On January 13, 2010, WBIT secured a worldwide licensing agreement with
Sesame Workshop to secure video game rights to
Sesame Street, starting in fall 2010 with ''Elmo's A-to-Zoo Adventure
and Cookie's Counting Carnival
. On February 23, 2010, Warner Bros. Games purchased a majority stake in independent London-based developer Rocksteady Studios, an independent development studio based in London. Rocksteady and Warner had previously worked together in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, and have announced they will work in the future with more Warner Bros. licenses. On March 22, 2010, WBIE became the latest videogame company to open a studio in Quebec. Martin Tremblay was chosen to lead the new Montreal studio, WB Games Montréal. The studio gradually grow to include more than 300 people by the end of 2015. Tremblay also said that Warner would open another studio in another city soon. He also said that WB Games Montréal will focus on creating games based on the DC Comics license. On April 9, WBIE announced it would publish a third installment to the F.E.A.R. series in the fall of 2010. On April 20, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group acquired Turbine, Inc. the developer of the famous MMOs Asheron's Call, Dungeons & Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online. On the same day, WBIT announced that the WB Games Chicago studio would be reincorporated as NetherRealm Studios and shortly afterward announced a reboot of Mortal Kombat. On June 4, WBHEG and Turbine announced that the massively multiplayer online title The Lord of the Rings Online
would go free-to-play that autumn. WBIE announced 6 days later that Mortal Kombat'', a reboot of the series (and considered the series' most brutal installment to date), was due for release on the
PlayStation 3 and
Xbox 360 in 2011.
Mortal Kombat was developed by the newly renamed
NetherRealm Studios, led by series creator and creative director
Ed Boon. Branching out from
Game Party for the
Wii, WBIE attempted to leverage the
Xbox 360's new full-body motion-sensing device
Kinect on June 14 and revealed
Game Party: In Motion for the new device, set for a November 4 release as a launch title. In May 2011, Codemasters changed its North American distributor to
THQ. However, the company would reinstate its distribution deal with Warner in March 2012 following THQ's financial difficulties. In 2013, after
Kevin Tsujihara became chairman and CEO of Warner Bros., he promoted
Diane Nelson to the post of President and Chief Content Officer of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In January 2015, David Haddad was named Executive Vice President and General Manager of the company and was promoted to President in October. In October 2016,
AT&T announced its intentions to acquire Time Warner, making Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment a subsidiary of AT&T. On December 19, 2016, it was announced that Warner Bros. would no longer develop or publish
The Lord of the Rings Online or
Dungeons & Dragons Online; further development of the game would be handled by a newly formed studio,
Standing Stone Games, with publishing to be transitioned over to
Daybreak Game Company. The new studio would take the old development team from Turbine, leaving Turbine as a mobile-only developer. As part of the deal, Daybreak did not pick up the rights to ''Asheron's Call
, an original IP created by Turbine and thus owned by Warner Bros. as part of the 2010 acquisition. This resulted in the closure of Asheron's Call
and Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings'' on January 31, 2017. On January 24, 2017, it was announced that recently-closed studio
Avalanche Software and its Octane engine software were acquired by Warner Bros. from
Disney Interactive Studios and the studio was reopened, with John Blackburn returning as its CEO. The studio's first title under Warner was a companion video game to the
Disney-
Pixar film
Cars 3, titled
Cars 3: Driven to Win, in partnership with Warner Bros., Disney, and Pixar. On February 8, Playdemic was acquired through TT Games to make Lego games for mobile devices. On July 11, 2018, it acquired Plexchat, a communications platform for mobile games, with its founder and staff joining WB Games San Francisco. In mid-2020, there had been industry rumors that AT&T, in order to raise funds, was looking to sell off parts of its divisions, with WBIE as one that had been rumored to be up for sale that would have raised $4 billion, according to
CNBC and
The Information. However, in an August 2020 press release regarding an organizational restructuring, WarnerMedia stated that WBIE "remains part of the Studios and Networks group".
Bloomberg News reported AT&T has confirmed to no longer be selling the game division, the decision to keep the division amid a change in leadership at AT&T in July of that year.
Rebrand to Warner Bros. Games In May 2021, AT&T announced that it was splitting off WarnerMedia for about , where it would be merged with
Discovery, Inc. As part of this sale, there were rumors that only portions of WBIE would be moved with the bulk of the other WarnerMedia properties, but WBIE would be retained as its previous additional brand, Warner Bros. Games, under the newly merged company named
Warner Bros. Discovery. Playdemic was one of the few properties divested from the merger, with it being sold to Electronic Arts for on September 20, 2021. It was announced on April 7, 2022, that Warner Bros. Games was reorganized with streaming services
HBO Max and
Discovery+ to form
Warner Bros. Discovery Global Streaming & Interactive Entertainment, to be overseen by JB Perrette; WB Games president David Haddad would report directly to Perrette. The merger was completed on April 8. In July 2024, Warner Bros. Games acquired
MultiVersus developer Player First Games. In July 2024, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (
SAG-AFTRA), a labor union of which numerous video game voice actors are members, would initiate a
labor strike against a number of video publishers, including WB Games, over concerns about lack of
A.I. protections for not only video game voice actors, but also the use of A.I to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness. During the third quarter of 2024, in a financial call, Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO
David Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels state that the underperformances of
MultiVersus and
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions had added another $100 million to the $200 million writedown to the company's games business in 2024. Warner Bros. Games will now focus more on its four other successful franchises going forward, Zaslav added during the call. In January 2025, David Haddad announced that in the coming months he would be exiting his role as President after 12 years leading the games division. In February 2025, Warner Bros. Games confirmed the closure of Monolith Productions, Player First Games and WB Games San Diego. By June 2025, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that Warner Bros. Games would be restructured with a focus on the DC Universe,
Harry Potter,
Mortal Kombat, and
Game of Thrones, and that the division would be part of the Streaming & Studios company when Warner Bros. Discovery would split in mid-2026. Yves Lachance, of WB Games Montreal, was promoted to oversee the
Harry Potter and
Game of Thrones titles, while NetherRealm's studio head Shaun Himmerick will oversee the DC Universe and
Mortal Kombat titles. == Subsidiaries and divisions ==