Warner Bros. Games boss David Haddad departs following rocky period for publisher

Almost a year after Suicide Squad's $200m flop.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad is stepping down after 12 years in the role, with his departure following a rocky period for Warner's game division that's been marked by a number of high-profile flops.

As reported by Variety, Haddad will stay on with the company for the next three months, while Warner seeks his replacement. "David has thoughtfully and purposefully chosen a time when our release schedule is lighter," Warner's global streaming and games president JB Perrette wrote, "which will help minimise disruption to our ongoing projects and strategic plans and allow this team to smoothly prepare for its next record-breaking title."

News of Haddad's departure comes almost exactly a year after the disastrous release of developer Rocksteady's Suicide Squad, which was enough of a flop to that it resulted in a $200m loss for Warner Bros. Free-to-play platform fighter MultiVersus also failed to find an audience despite almost a year of downtime for extensive retooling, resulting in a further $100m hit for the publisher.

And while 2023's Hogwarts Legacy was a significant financial win for Warner Bros., last year's Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions failed to replicate that success, with the publisher later admitting the title had "underperformed".

As to what's next for Warner Bros. Games, the publisher has yet to share much in the way of its future plans. The only game currently left on its announced slate is Monolith Productions' open-world Wonder Woman title - which Warner Bros. has denied is a live service title, despite a job listing sighted in 2023, and despite company CEO David Zaslav's previous ambitions to transform its biggest gaming franchises from traditional console and PC releases into "always on" live service games.