Warner Bros. Games reportedly being split up after AT&T merger
"Some of the gaming arm will stay with AT&T and some will go with the new company"
WB Games (which owns the studios who make Batman:Arkham, Mortal Kombat and the Lego games) might be broken up after WarnerMedia merge with Discovery. WB's parent company AT&T announced the merger yesterday, which they say will create a "a premier, standalone global entertainment company" to rival big players like Netflix and Disney. Reportedly, some of WB's games studios will stay with AT&T, while others will go with the new company.
There's no mention of WB Games in AT&T's announcement, but the company told IGN that part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) will be sold off, though it's not clear which part. An AT&T representative also told Axios's Sara Fischer: "Some of the gaming arm will stay with AT&T and some will go with the new company."
The 11 studios that make up WBIE are: Rocksteady, NetherRealm, Monolith, TT Games, Avalanche Software, WB Games Montréal, WB Games Boston, WB Games Los Angeles, WB Games San Francisco, WB Games San Diego, and WB Games New York. There are no official details on which game studios will go where just yet, though I'd imagine the ones that deal directly with WB-owned franchises (like Rocksteady, who made the DC comics-based Batman: Arkham series) will stick with WB.
I've reached out to WarnerMedia to try and find out which studios might be sold, and who's staying with AT&T. I'll update this post if I get a reponse.
This isn't the first time AT&T talked about shifting these studios. Last year, they were reportedly looking to sell their gaming division for $4 billion (about £2.8 billion) to pay off some of their debt - a deal that Microsoft, Take-Two, EA and Activision Blizzard all expressed interest in. But a month later, it was reported that AT&T changed their minds, and were going to find that debt-money elsewhere.