Warner Bros Interactive will be "broken up somehow" after parent company AT&T's confirmed it will now be merging WarnerMedia with Discovery to create a new "premier, standalone global entertainment company."
The supposed deal is expected to close in mid-2022 and will see AT&T receive $43 billion USD and also getting stock that represents 71% of the new company.
In regards to WB Interactive, a spokesperson apparently told a reporter at Axios (as per journalist Stephen Totilo on Twitter) "Some of the gaming arms will stay with AT&T and some will go with the new company."
details on the split are currently not known, Warner Bros Interactive is home to a ton of prolific studios that includes: NetherRealm Studios (Mortal Kombat), Rocksteady Studios (Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League) , TT Games (Lego Star Wars: A Skywalker Saga), Avalanche Games (Hogwarts Legacy) and Monolith (Shadow of Mordor).
Sadly, this isn’t the first hurdle that WBIE has had to overcome, with reports suggesting that AT&T were possibly looking to sell the games divisions last summer. Interest in making the purchase came from companies such as Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, and EA. However, they apparently changed their minds by September, deeming the business "too valuable to unload during its effort to pay down debt and streamline."
How this turns out is gonna pretty impactful to the gaming industry and I could see AT&T possibly pushing contracts to other companies to create games based on licenses and then just sitting collecting royalties.
