Warner Bros. Interactive Expands Into Europe

Officials from U.S. publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) have announced that the company is to expand its business in Europe as it takes over direct distribution, sales and marketing of its internally developed titles as well as third party titles. Currently, most WBIE games are published via British publisher Eidos Interactive in Europe. The Eidos publishing label is owned by SCi, with whom WBIE signed a strategic partnership deal last year to create games based on many of their television and comic book properties. As part of the deal, WBIE also made an investment in SCi for 10.3 percent of the company’s shares. Despite this, WBIE is recruiting sales and marketing executives for a new European office to be based in London, as well as in other territories including Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg). The first titles to be released via the new offices will arrive this autumn in the form of Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal for Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation 2 and Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck for the Nintendo DS. “We are intensifying our expansion in video game publishing with a strong commitment to growth in the European market,” said Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. “With a range of products for every platform, we will reach multiple gaming audiences with our own internally produced games as well as several partner companies’ games.” “Utilising the largest worldwide entertainment distribution, marketing, sales and research infrastructure, WBIE is making strides to get quality games to the consumers in Europe,” said Ron Scott, senior vice president of worldwide sales and distribution at WBIE. “We are looking forward to growing games specific retail relationships in the territories and delivering a robust slate of games in the years ahead.”