Are all those headlines about
Microsoft buying video game producer Activision
Blizzard ("Call of Duty" and "World of Warcraft") for $68.7 billion is in any way registering with legacy media?
Days before the two big gaming companies merged, Take-Two Interactive bought
mobile game producer Zynga for $12.7 billion.
Media winds around video-gaming deals have been swirling for sometime. But why would TV and movie companies want to do a seemingly sideways synergy?
The answer: Follow the money, follow your consumers. Critics might add: But up to a point.
Late last year, Netflix dipped its toe in the water when it came to buying a small video-game
studio, Night School Studio. It subsequently began to offer video-game content to its endemic streaming/subscription users.
But what about Disney, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal? Where are they in
this fight to maintain their current business consumers but looking to attract young media users in future?
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We are not talking about synergy into any of their legacy business -- linear TV
networks, for example -- but future digitally focused business like streaming.
That said, let’s go backwards a bit. Walt Disney and Warner Bros. have been in the video-game business, but
with mixed results. Disney shut down its game development business in 2016, transitioning exclusively to a licensing model. WarnerMedia has had its Warner Bros. Interactive business for a
while.
Now, much of video gaming lives in a console/desktop subscription sans advertising support. More than a few parties are still trying to figure out how to factor in advertising. (Mobile
video gamers do much better in this area.)
All this exists in a market, where for the better part of the pandemic, video-game sales continued to soar in 2020/2021, save for December 2021.
Disney and Warner Bros.’ real interest in video-game production is in finding the connections to its still-growing intellectual property. For Microsoft, there is no mystery about its
current move: It's supporting its popular Xbox console.
The difference for Disney and Warner is that the most popular video games are not coming from particular movie franchises or TV shows --
Marvel Universe (Disney) or DC Comics (Warner Bros. Interactive). For example, for 2021, Warner Bros. placed “Back 4 Blood” and “Mortal Kombat 11” in the top 20 of bestselling
games -- 18th and 19th place, respectively -- according to The NPD Group.
This isn’t to say Disney NBC or WarnerMedia aren’t pursuing young entertainment consumers when they can.
Both are accessing them from their respective action-adventure/fantasy characters via movies in theaters and TV.
But is that enough?