Warner Bros. wants more profitable "worlds" after Hogwarts Legacy earns $1 billion

Hogwarts Legacy has delivered over $1 billion in retail sales for publisher Warner Bros. Games.

As highlighted by PC Gamer, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav broke the news during a recent earnings call and said the title has sold 15 million copies since launching in February 2023.

In a separate earnings report, Hogwarts Legacy was described as the "largest release of all time for Warner Bros. Games" and the company's "best selling game year-to-date."

Zaslav seems eager to replicate the success of Hogwarts Legacy, and (in something of a ramble) suggested Warner Bros. might look to some of its other major properties in a bid to do so.

"When we launch a product on Max or HBO and when we have a game—that game belongs to us, but now there's this in-betweener. It may be in the next couple of years that we launch a Superman movie [...] and there's more economics of people just hanging out in the Superman world and universe," commented Zaslav.

"The fact that we own all of that is something that I think is going to be really important as we look forward. As technology develops, and given the amount of time that people spend on gaming, we don't want to be in the motion picture and long-form storytelling business and have somebody else in the business of hanging out in those worlds. Those worlds are going to be quite profitable in the years ahead."

The Legacy of Hogwarts Legacy

Despite selling well, the launch of Hogwarts Legacy proved to be a flashpoint, with many wondering whether supporting the game was tantamount to endorsing the alleged anti-trans views of franchise creator J.K. Rowling.

In an op-ed published in February, Game Developer senior editor Bryant Francis argued that "there's no escaping Rowling's bigoted views and the shadow they cast on Hogwarts Legacy."

"The argument goes on to say that Rowling may legally own Harry Potter, but she doesn't own its cultural impact or our relationship to the Wizarding World," wrote Francis. "I have a different question: does that argument stand up to scrutiny?"

To hear Francis' answer, you can read the complete op-ed here.