Why Warner Bros. keeps picking up new games and studios

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
June 19, 2018
Updated June 20, 2025
10 min

When Hitman maker IO Interactive cut loose from Square Enix, it was no surprise that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) stepped in and acquired the rights to publish Hitman 2 and Hitman: Definitive Edition.

WBIE, a division of the Warner Bros. film company and a part of the Time Warner empire, has steadily built a stable of ten internal game studios (not counting a back-end studio) across the world across PC, console, and mobile platforms. It is working with outside developers such as Jam City on the Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery mobile game.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.