Skydance Has Everything It Needs Except Focus

In February, Warner Bros.’ gaming boss JB Perrette admitted the company had become distracted by chasing “too many IPs” across too many studios. After a series of expensive failures, the company went back to basics and focused on a handful of proven franchises.

Seven months later, there is suddenly more IP to choose from.

On October 6, Paramount Skydance completed its $110B acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in one of the largest media mergers in history. The newly renamed Skydance now brings together two major Hollywood film studios, two streaming services (Paramount+ and HBO Max), and television networks including CBS, CNN, and HBO. Although the broader implications of the merger are beyond the scope of this article, one detail stands out: almost by accident, Skydance has become a major player in video games.

The original merger announcement barely acknowledged games. On closing day, however, Skydance combined Paramount’s and Warner Bros.’ gaming businesses under Tony Driscoll, who had been appointed to lead Paramount Games Studio just four months earlier and now becomes president of Games and Experiences. Driscoll is a veteran of Epic Games, Warner Bros., AT&T, and Disney, and as the company’s head of corporate strategy and development, he led integration plans for the Warner deal.

The IP portfolio is almost absurd. Batman, Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Trek, and SpongeBob now sit under the same roof, alongside some of the industry’s most respected game studios.

On paper, the pieces fit. The reality is a bit messier.

A Complicated Starting Point

It’s easy to say Warner brings game studios and publishing, while Paramount Skydance brings IP and reach. The truth is more nuanced.

Historically, Paramount was primarily a licensor, leaving development and publishing to its partners. Scopely’s Star Trek Fleet Command is a good example: a successful live-service mobile game built and operated outside Paramount. The company’s biggest contribution is still its IP portfolio, including TMNT, Star Trek, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Meanwhile, Skydance — which merged with Paramount in 2025 — has been quietly building its own games arm. Skydance Interactive specializes in VR experiences and has done so since 2016. Another division, Skydance New Media, was founded in 2019 and is working on ambitious AAA projects including Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra and an upcoming Star Wars game (notably, both use Disney-licensed IP). Paramount combined the two under Paramount Games Studio in June.

WB Games, by contrast, has decades of publishing experience. Its studios include Rocksteady (Batman: Arkham), Avalanche Software (Hogwarts Legacy), NetherRealm (Mortal Kombat), and TT Games (LEGO titles). It also operates a meaningful mobile free-to-play business, notably the Game of Thrones strategy titles Conquest and Dragonfire.

The track record is impressive. But Warner has spent the past few years learning some expensive lessons. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and MultiVersus were unsuccessful live-service bets. In 2025, WB Games closed three studios, including Monolith Productions, and canceled its Wonder Woman production. The publisher subsequently narrowed its priorities to key franchises: Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat, and DC. Warner said it expected that reset to start paying off in 2027–28, with new releases from some of its biggest franchises, although beyond a Hogwarts Legacy sequel it hasn’t said which titles are coming.

Despite the struggles, Skydance appears to see games as part of its future, not just something it got from the merger. That doesn’t mean every studio or project is worth keeping. With roughly $80B in debt and a target of “$6B in annualized run-rate synergies over the next three years,” Skydance faces some difficult choices. It could invest in its strongest studios, streamline the portfolio, or even sell parts of the business. The risk is cutting valuable development talent instead of weak projects or overlapping functions.

Where to Bet and Where to Pass

With this much IP under one roof, Skydance has no shortage of opportunities. An open-world Avatar RPG, a Star Trek grand strategy game, or a premium adventure set in Westeros — almost every franchise could justify an exciting pitch.

The harder part is deciding which ones are worth making, and by whom.

Protect proven teams, not every project.Hogwarts Legacy is the prime example. Despite decades of Harry Potter games, nobody had quite delivered the fantasy of actually living in the Wizarding World. Avalanche finally pulled it off with Hogwarts Legacy, selling more than 40M copies. That kind of expertise is worth protecting.

The same goes for NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat and TT Games’ LEGO specialization. Both have established audiences and know how to serve them.

Rocksteady is a harder call after Suicide Squad’s expensive failure. Still, the live-service project doesn’t erase the studio’s Arkham pedigree. A return to premium single-player AAA sounds far more promising than another live-service experiment. Arguably, Suicide Squad’s biggest problem was the mismatch between the game and the studio’s strengths. Rocksteady wasn’t alone in learning that lesson during the early 2020s live-service craze.

Find the right developer, or don’t make the game.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is a promising example. The game was originally announced in 2023 with Black Forest Games developing and THQ Nordic publishing, but after years of silence, many fans assumed it was dead. Development had actually stopped before Paramount merged with Skydance. Instead of letting the project go, Paramount Games Studio revived it with a new partner. Pairing the darker TMNT story with PlatinumGames, one of the most respected action game developers, looks like an excellent match on paper. The approach makes sense: revitalize an evergreen IP by bringing in a high-profile studio instead of building a new studio around the project.

The same approach should apply to Skydance’s other tentpole franchises. But a more basic question remains: is a big-budget game worth making at all? AAA development is increasingly expensive, and even the biggest entertainment franchises don’t guarantee success. Ubisoft learned that with Star Wars Outlaws, while EA has been scaling back its licensed IP ambitions. Skydance has the advantage of controlling many of its own franchises, but that doesn’t make development any cheaper.

A single-player Game of Thrones RPG sounds exciting on paper, but it’s far from an obvious bet. Warner already had the IP before the merger, yet never produced a major AAA title. The merger itself doesn’t change that equation.

There’s also the awkward question of who would make it. Avalanche has Hogwarts, while Rocksteady and WB Games Montréal aren’t obvious fits. Giving such a project to whichever internal studio has capacity would be the wrong approach. Skydance needs a developer with a compelling vision for the game, whether internal or external. If the right developer isn’t available, it’s better to wait.

Finding the right developer is only half the job. Paramount’s history also includes poorly reviewed licensed games such as Avatar: The Last Airbender – Quest for Balance and Nickelodeon Kart Racers. Slapping a familiar IP onto a mediocre game doesn’t do the franchise any favors. Skydance needs to be selective about which licenses it grants and ensure its partners have the resources, creative freedom, and oversight to deliver something worthwhile. Sometimes the best licensing decision is not to make a game at all.

Keep mobile pragmatic. Warner already has experienced teams operating Game of Thrones mobile strategy games. Those teams know their niche, and there is little reason to disrupt a functioning business to make a grand statement about the merger.

For new mobile opportunities, Paramount’s partnerships offer a better model. Star Trek Fleet Command shows what a specialist such as Scopely can achieve with a strong license, even though the game’s revenue isn’t the same as Paramount’s licensing income. Find strong operators, make sensible deals, and let them do what they do best.

Make the media empire work for games. With Paramount+, HBO Max, major film studios, and television networks under one roof, Skydance has an enormous marketing advantage. It can introduce players to new games through the franchises they already watch, coordinate game launches with film and TV releases, and promote its catalog to existing fans. Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game already shows how this can work. The $30 fighter launched in July, two days before Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender premiered on Paramount+, and it became the best-reviewed Avatar game ever.

The Value of Saying No

Before greenlighting a game, Skydance should be able to answer four questions: why this IP, why this genre, why this developer, and why now. It can combine overlapping publishing functions without forcing studios into the same mold.

Skydance has the IP, talent, and publishing resources to become an exceptional games company. But Warner’s recent history reminds us that none of those ingredients guarantees success.

The biggest advantage of owning so many franchises is the freedom to choose. The biggest danger is the temptation to pursue them all.

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Content Worth Consuming

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3 Ways Game Studios Pay ExDev Teams (and When Each One Fails) (Building Better Games): “In this episode of Building Better Games, Ben sits down with Catalin Butnariu, Chief Strategy Officer at Amber. They dive deep into the evolving landscape of external development in game dev; from navigating contract models and overcoming loss-of-control fears to building effective communication layers and utilizing AI without alienating your audience.”

Indies and Original IP Blew Up in 2026 (gamesindustry.biz): “Research by Sensor Tower — done at the request of GamesIndustry.biz — shows that indies and original IP made up a much higher proportion of the biggest PC and console games of 2026 when compared with 2025. The analytics firm picked out the games that had sold more than 500,000 units in their first month on sale in two 12-month date ranges: September 2024 to August 2025 (the 2025 cohort), and September 2025 to August 2026 (the 2026 cohort). In the 2025 cohort, a total of 55 games sold more than 500,000 units in their first month, while 76 games met the threshold in the 2026 cohort, and the number of units sold increased by 51% year on year, from 120.5 million to 182.4 million.”

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