Streaming giant Netflix has said that it did not “attribute any value” to Warner Bros’ games business as part of its proposed acquisition of the entertainment giant.
That’s according to the streaming giant’s co-CEO, president and director Gregory Peters, who – as reported by PocketGamer.biz – said that Warner Bros’ would be an accelerant for its own games business.
“While they definitely have been doing some great work in the game space, 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,” Peter explained.
“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.”
Peters was also asked about Netflix’s own games business. The co-CEO said that it has been investing its infrastructure and bringing titles to its platform.
“A lot of work has actually been also understanding the strategy and sort of seeing, as we always say, you never know what you’ve got until you get out there with consumers and you figure it out,” he continued.
“So we’ve learned a lot from that. Now we’re at the point where we’re really unlocking the value of the strategic refinements that we’ve made, which have been super exciting. You see a couple of different categories that we’re really going after, and we feel are consistent with what we — the value we can deliver to members, which is differential, which is taking immersive narrative games that are based on IP that we have.
“So you can imagine fans of Squid Games, going super deeper into that universe. It was actually fun because we did a fun game around golf, but not like I’d say an incredible masterpiece of the game around golf and then with Happy Gilmore, you see all these people that are playing it. So you see that need there.
Peters went on to describe that Netflix was a “very safe space for kids,” highlighting a lack of ads and in-app purchases on its app.
“Kids is another space. We think we can give a very safe space for kids, no in-app payments, no ads and just give them a place to play there,” he said. “Also taking story game IP and just finding another distribution range for that. We did it with Grand Theft Auto. We just released Red Dead Redemption, which as you can see is topping the game charts on mobile. So that’s another great example that’s there.
“And the fourth one is when we think about is social games. This is like family game nights, reinvented or maybe even the extension of what used to be the game show, right? And we released a bunch of games on the TV that is designed for folks to sit around the TV with our phones as controllers and play, I think Boggle, Pictionary, LEGO.
“And we’re seeing really big take-up in that — and then we’ve got a new game, quiz show game coming, Best Guess, which is super exciting, which gets into a little bit that game show space.”
Netflix announced that it was going to buy Warner Bros, including the company’s games division, for $82.7 billion. Paramount Skydance has also kicked off a hostile takeover bid for the entirety of Warner Bros Discovery.
