Category: Video Games

Batman. Justice League. Harry Potter. Looney Tunes. Game of Thrones. The list of intellectual property owned by Warner Bros. Discovery is massive, and an awful lot of it seems ripe for being turned into a video game. If you’re thinking WB’s been a little slow to leverage that library, it sounds like the company’s leadership agrees, and is looking not just to make more of its own games, but to license out some of its biggest franchises to other game studios in the future.

Today on the Warner Bros. Discovery Q2 earnings, call CEO David Zaslav and president of global streaming and games JB Perrette responded to a question about the “strategic value” of games to Warner Bros. given recent “uneven performance”. The company had just reported gaming revenue down 41% year-over-year due to underperformance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League compared to Hogwarts Legacy’s massive success last year. Does WB see games as a core part of its portfolio?

Seems like the answer is yes. Both Zaslav and Perrette explained that they wanted to grow the gaming business, especially in the free-to-play space, which Perrette says can help balance out some of the ups-and-downs of the cyclical console industry. That’s part of why WB acquired Player First Games, developer of Multiversus, earlier this year.

Zaslav followed up by noting that not only did WB want to keep leveraging its eleven studios, but that there’s “also a lot of interest among others in coming to take advantage of some of that IP for gaming, which we’re looking at.”

Here’s both of their answers in full below:

Warner Bros. Discovery reported revenue of $9.7 billion for the quarter, but an overall net loss of $10 billion, $9.1 billion of which was due to impairment charges. The company also reported subscription services were up 3.6 million subscribers from last quarter, bringing its total to 103.3 million.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Ready at Dawn, a venerable game studio that once worked on God War and Daxter among other projects, is closing its doors. Android Central reports that Meta is shuttering the studio effective immediately, with employees being encouraged to apply for other positions within Oculus Studios.

The closure follows Meta’s decision to discontinue Echo VR in 2023, which coincided with major layoffs impacting a third of the studio. Oculus Studios had previously acquired Ready at Dawn, which had found success with the Lone Echo series, to develop VR games for its platforms.

Brutal to hear about the closure of Ready at Dawn. Here’s a documentary I made about the studio while at Game Informer. Woof, double-whammy of sadness this week. https://t.co/Nd9NU5vqkH

— Ben Hanson (@yozetty) August 7, 2024

“As many have already heard, this morning Ready At Dawn Studios is closing its doors. I’ve been at RAD for over 10 years and I am incredibly sad to see this wonderful team I’ve grown to love be broken apart this way,” designer director Robert Duncan wrote. “That said, at least for now I’m trying to focus my effort on (and, let’s be honest, distract myself by) finding solid places for all my dear friends to land. If anyone has any leads/positions they’d like to share, please feel free to reach out to me directly and I’ll try my best to get you in touch with good folks that might be interested.”

The games industry mourned the closure on social media and elsewhere, with many describing it as underappreciated. MinnMax founder Ben Hanson posted a documentary he produced with Game Informer that provides a snapshot of the studio circa 2014, when it was preparing to release The Order: 1886.

Ready at Dawn’s history extends all the way back to 2003, when it was formed by former employees of Naughty Dog and Blizzard Entertainment. It was particularly well-known for its prowess on the PlayStation Portable, producing multiple God of War games for the platform.

Following the mixed reception of The Order: 1886, Ready at Dawn began to move into VR, releasing Lone Echo for the Oculus Rift in 2017. We wrote at the time, “Lone Echo and Echo Arena are the rare games that demonstrate the true value of VR and hand tracking. Its sense of movement feels great, and it couldn’t exist in any other way.”

After it was purchased by Oculus Studios in 2021, Ready at Dawn released Lone Echo II, but otherwise has not put out a game since. A report in mid-July stated that Meta was reportedly cutting its Reality Labs division’s budget by 20 percent in 2026 in order to make a “better long-term impact” in VR development. Meta subsequently told Android Central that this isn’t a signal “wider cuts” to the number of first-party games on Quest.

Ready at Dawn is one many game studios to close in 2024, joining Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, Roll7, and more in what has been a difficult year for games. For more, check out our deep dive into the layoffs impacting the games industry.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Warner Bros. Discovery reported today that its game revenue suffered a major drop this quarter from the same period last year, largely due to weak performance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Games revenue, under the WB Games division, dropped 41% year-over-year. Though Suicide Squad’s struggles were the main culprit, it was admittedly up against stiff competition: last year’s comparable included strong sales of Hogwarts Legacy, which launched in February of 2023 and continued to do exceedingly well throughout the year that followed. It sold 22 million copies in 2023 alone, and has since reached 24 million.

Suicide Squad, meanwhile, was panned by critics and called “disappointing” by WB Discovery boss David Zaslav last quarter, and resulted in a $200 million impairment charge in that report. An impairment charge is a practice businesses use when they need to write off or report a reduction in the value of some of their assets that they previously thought would have a higher value.

Speaking of impairment charges, Warner Bros. Discovery undertook a massive one this quarter outside of games. The company reported revenue of $9.7 billion, but an overall net loss of $10 billion, $9.1 billion of which was due to impairment charges. Officially, WB cited the charge as due to “the difference between market capitalization and book value, continued softness in the U.S. linear advertising market, and uncertainty related to affiliate and sports rights renewals, including the NBA.”

The first part, about book value, is WB reevaluating the value of its TV networks segment in light of customers and advertiser interest in streaming and digital content over traditional TV. But the NBA bit was likely responsible for a hefty sum of the impairment charge too. WB’s contract for NBA media rights expires after the 2024-2025 season, and the NBA appears to have opted to take its business to Amazon instead. Though WB has since attempted to exercise what it says are its rights to match Amazon’s offer and is suing the NBA over them, it doesn’t seem likely to win.

While all that sounds fairly dismal, WB’s subscription services were up 3.6 million from last quarter, bringing its total to 103.3 million. This is the first time the company has passed 100 million subscribers.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

The Switch dock isn’t very portable. It’s a little bulky and you’ll still need to bring along a wall charger. Fortunately, there’s a pretty awesome alternative. Right now Amazon is offering the Mirabox Portable 30W Nintendo Switch Dock Charger for only $17.99 after instant savings and 50% off coupon code “N9XORL7H“. This compact gadget charges your Nintendo Switch (at its maximum charging rate) and has an HDMI port for you to connect your Switch to a TV. It has all the functionality of your dock but in a much smaller size.

Mirabox Portable Nintendo Switch Dock Charger for $19.99

The Mirabox dock charger is clad in your choice of black, white, or the iconic Switch red and blue color scheme. It has three ports: a USB Type-C port, a USB Type-A port, and an HDMI port. The USB Type-C port supports Power Delivery up to 25W, which is enough juice to charge the Switch at its maximum rate of 18W. That basically means that the Switch will charge up even while you are playing games on it. The HDMI port connects your Switch to your TV. The Mirabox supports up to 1080p resolutions at 60Hz, which is good enough for the Nintendo Switch, since it doesn’t natively support 4K resolution or 120Hz refresh rate.

The biggest advantage of the Mirabox is that it is 1/10th the size of the Switch dock. That makes it much easier to stow this away in your bag without having to buy yet another larger Switch case. A USB Type-C cable is already included as well, so all you need to supply is your Nintendo Switch and an HDMI cable.

Get the 65W model for Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally

Note that there’s a 65W model that is $25.99 after you apply the same code “N9XORL7H“. This is overkill for the Nintendo Switch, however it’s the preferred model if you plan to use the charger dock with the ASUS ROG Ally, which accepts up to 65W, or the Steam Deck, which accepts up to 38W.

Check out more of the best Nintendo Switch deals today.

It’s been one year since Baldur’s Gate 3 launched, and now, developer Larian Studios has revealed how players chose to navigate their journey through its Dungeons & Dragons video game.

The studio unveiled a smorgasbord of stats in a lengthy X/Twitter thread. While it includes interesting data related to Baldur’s Gate 3’s soul-crushing permadeath Honour Mode and which characters fans favored over others, it also reveals that 1.9 million players were, at one point or another, turned into a wheel of cheese.

Another crucial stat update reveals that while everyone’s favorite dog, Scratch, was pet 120 million times, The Owlbear Cub and His Majesty the cat received only 41 million and 141,660 pet attempts, respectively. What matters most, though, is that we now know just how everyone chose to approach the game’s romance options.

Over the last 12 months, you’ve smooched your companions a total of 75 Million times.

Please give them a break, their lips are losing pixels. pic.twitter.com/6UWN45gri6

— Baldur’s Gate 3 (@baldursgate3) August 7, 2024

Larian’s posts include a nice selection of romance-related figures. Baldur’s Gate 3 companions have been kissed more than 75 million times in total, with Shadowheart leading the pack at a whopping 27 million kisses. Astarion is, unsurprisingly, in second at 15 million smooches, with poor Minthara in last with 169,937. We also have a look at some stats about Halsin, Larian’s infamous Druid character. Of the 658,000 players who had sex with Halsin, 70% chose to sleep with him in his human form, while the other 30% chose his grizzly bear form.

In all of Baldur’s Gate 3, Astarion proved to be the most-played as Origin being at 1.21 million characters created with him to start. That’s a lot of High Elf Rogues running around, but Larian does clarify that 93% of players did choose to create their own custom character when beginning an adventure. Meanwhile, while 141,660 players managed to complete Honour Mode, a staggering 1,223,305 playthroughs ended in a loss.

As for some of the more important story moments achievable in Baldur’s Gate 3, 3.3 million users managed to kill the Netherbrain, while another 1.8 million chose to betray the mind-flayer emperor. Interestingly, only 34 players who chose Lae’zel as their Origin character also chose to kill themselves at the end of the game.

Astarion has been your favourite Origin character avatar, shortly followed by the wizard of Waterdeep and, of course, God’s favourite princess.

However, over 93% of players chose to play as a custom avatar. Nice. pic.twitter.com/rzyj3scKPx

— Baldur’s Gate 3 (@baldursgate3) August 7, 2024

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game of near-infinite possibilities, and that’s one of the biggest reasons players fell in love with it last summer. Despite so much to offer at launch, Larian has continued to deliver more content in post-launch updates, with many speculating that Alfira may be added as a new companion when Patch 7 arrives soon.

While we wait for Larian to expand on the already massive world of Baldur’s Gate 3, be sure to read our 10/10 review. At the time of its launch in July 2023, we said, “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.