The DeanBeat: Does Big Tech or Hollywood get games better?

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) is one of the treasures of the video game industry. Started by Jason Hall in 2004 and run by David Haddad today, WBIE has 11 studios that make triple-A games such as Mortal Kombat, Lego Harry Potter, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Injustice, and the Batman Arkham series. It makes anywhere from $300 million to $500 million in revenues per quarter, depending on what’s coming out.

But this was peanuts compared to AT&T’s revenue of $44 billion a quarter — and its staggering debt of $169 billion. AT&T had to do something about that debt, and so it is spinning out Warner Media and properties like HBO and WBIE to merge them with Discovery. Although it’s a crown jewel of games, WBIE merited very little attention from the top brass at AT&T.