The staff working at Warner Bros’ new Montreal studio are reportedly “angry” about the recently announced switch that will have the developer going from making triple-A titles to social and mobile games. While we understand their confusion and frustration, the mobile market is flourishing and with it, the connectivity to social media sites and services. There is money to be made here, and lots of it. Nevertheless, the move does raise an unavoidably question: why? The reason we just told you, the same reason as always.
“Before, we perceived the [social/mobile] market as a secondary market, but today is a growing market with the democratization of video games. Commercially, we believe we can sell more than games on a grand scale,” said general manager Martin Carrier to Canadian newspaper Lapressaffaires.
The 26 employees working at Warner Bros Montreal at this time were apparently “surprised by the change in philosophy, sometimes to the point of leaving the company,” according to the paper. Given that the studio is supposed to house 300 developers by 2015, any one of those 26 leaving would be a rather inconvenient setback.