The developer of Batman: Arkham Asylum was acquired by Warner Bros.

FEB. 23, 2010 • Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group has acquired a controlling 68.4% interest in Rocksteady Studios, the creative house responsible for Batman: Arkham Asylum. The 70-person London-based studio is expected to create more titles under Warner’s Batman license. A month later, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that it was taking advantage of provincial tax incentives to open a development studio in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Impact:  Warner Bros. and Disney have been the two most directly active film and entertainment studios in the video game industry over the years, both of them surging in recently on publishing internally owned intellectual properties. In particular, Warner’s recent acquisitions of successful game developers, such as TT Games in 2007, Snowblind Studios in 2009 and now the majority stake in Rocksteady, has positioned the media giant be an increasingly important publishing force within the industry.  A potential advantage Warner Bros. has is its stable of properties with more appeal to the traditional games consumers compared to Disney, including Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Batman.  Its next major opportunity will leverage TT’s Lego games success in Lego Harry Potter due out in May.  We will be paying close attention to how this launch performs as an indication of Warner Bros ability to capitalize on their internal IP publishing strategy.