I won’t pretend that I know any thing about corporate-scale business, but I’m starting to wonder if the people running these companies actually know all that much more, I mean, you’d think keeping a company that brings in tens of millions of dollars a year solvent would be relatively doable, but I guess not. So, here we are with yet another major corporate buyout, only this time it’s Netflix buying a big chunk of Warner Bros. (somehow).

As reported by Gamedeveloper.com, Netflix has confirmed that it’s acquiring Warner Bros. gaming division along with the company’s streaming and television businesses. This is being done via a cash and stock transaction Valued at around $82.7 billion and will put Netflix in control of IP Such as Harry Potter, DC, and Game of Thrones. This also includes everything associated with HBO. Game-wise, this means the studios behind Mortal Kombat (Nether Realm), Batman: Arkham (Rocksteady), and LEGO (TT Games) will be under Netflix control moving forward.

On one hand, this might not be all that big of a deal since, with the possible exception OF TT Games, all of these studios already haven’t exactly been putting out bangers these past few years, and the IP Warner controls haven’t had much of a foot print in gaming lately. On the other hand, who’s to say Netflix is going to stop here? It, like every other giant corp, sees gaming first and foremost as a cash cow to be exploited, so one acquisition likely won’t be enough. Netflix also seems the sort that wants to go the Apple route of creating a walled garden, so whatever it acquires will likely only be available through the gaming streaming service it’s sure to create.

By the way, how is it that Netflix can even scrape together billions of dollars to do this buyout? Hasn’t it been complaining for years about losing subscribers and hemorrhaging money? Hasn’t it developed a reputation for poor 1stt party programming (outside of a couple of notable exceptions) and been actively making the user experience worse year-over-year? How does it still have any money at all?

I seriously don’t understand it. Nor do I understand why it is that our options in the AAA space have to keep dwindling. Give it another 5 years and the entirety of that portion of the industry is going to be owned by like 3 or 4 megacorps. Once that happens, I guess it’ll be time for the real slop to start getting churned out (for premium price, of course).

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What’s your take on in all this? Where do AAA gaming going over the next couple of years?

Image from the Netflix Website