Skydance president Andy Gordon has locked in leadership across several key areas outside of the newly merged company’s TV and film divisions. These include games and experiences, products and publishing, HR, and global operations. The biggest piece of news here, of course, is that the games and experiences divisions of Paramount and WBD will be combined into a single team.
This new team will oversee projects based on a huge list of intellectual property. On the Paramount side, that includes Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, SpongeBob SquarePants, South Park, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Godfather. On the Warner Bros. side, it includes Harry Potter, DC Universe, Mortal Kombat, The Matrix, Rick and Morty, and Game of Thrones.
For gamers, the most notable part of this is that the newly formed Paramount Games Studio will be combined with Warner Bros. Games’ internal video game developers. That means Avalanche Software, the developer behind Hogwarts Legacy, along with NetherRealm Studios, Rocksteady Studios, TT Games, and the WB Games teams in Montreal and Boston.
According to an email Gordon sent to staff on Tuesday evening, which was obtained by Variety, the leadership structure looks like this:
- Tony Driscoll will be president of games and experiences, in addition to leading corporate strategy and development
- Josh Silverman will be president of global products and publishing
- Jim Sterner will remain chief people officer and continue to lead HR operations
- Jose Turkienicz will continue as president of global operations, including real estate, procurement, and studio operations
- Jeff Silberman will be Gordon’s chief of staff, while continuing as executive vice president of corporate strategy
Gordon’s email framed games, experiences, consumer products, and publishing as future growth engines that sit alongside the company’s core ambitions in TV, film, and direct-to-consumer. He called them “core pillars of our strategy” for building engagement and fandom in both the physical and digital worlds. He also said the company sees an opportunity to build on DC Comics’ storytelling and expand its e-commerce offerings.
Driscoll, who was named head of Paramount’s new video game studio back in June, sent out his own memo laying out early plans for his team. He described a division that covers theme parks, resorts, restaurants, retail, and studio tours on the experiences side, and action, adventure, combat, competition, and creativity on the games side, with properties ranging from Batman to SpongeBob. He also said his first priority in the coming weeks is meeting as many team members as he can, from Los Angeles to London, Montreal to Tokyo, and beyond.
That said, there are no details yet on what this means for any specific game in development at either company. This being said, putting the Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat, and Batman developers under the same roof as Paramount’s studio is a very big deal, and it will be interesting to see what comes out of it.
Source: Variety