Warner Bros. recently announced that former Glu Mobile boss Greg Ballard would head up a new free-to-play studio in San Francisco. Ballard is keen to emphasize that expectations are modest for the studio at first, though he would like to see ideas from the mobile studio bubble up to other parts of the organization.
“We’re not going to be the size of a Kabam or a Zynga anytime soon. The thing that I’ve learned about Warner is that resources follow success,” Ballard explained. “We’re not coming in like large companies sometimes do with the announcement ‘Back off, everybody. The new winner is here.’ That’s not the attitude. That’s not the way we’re approaching it. It’s going to be a slow and steady build on our successes sort of business. I think we’ve learned a lot from watching the other approach, which is to come in all guns blazing, which often doesn’t work and alienates people along the way.”
“At some point we will be doing original IP as well. And I hope in my wildest dreams that that could be the beginning of a brand of Warner that trickles up and gets exploited throughout the organization as opposed to one that comes from the movies down,” he added. “That’s not our mission in the first couple of titles, but you will see us over time as we’re successful doing more of that.”
Source: GamesIndustry International
