On May 5th, during an investor’s call following the first quarterly meeting of 2022 for WWE, Stephanie McMahon addressed the WWE’s focus on attracting younger fans, specifically through the medium of video games. Topics discussed included, but weren’t limited to, a WWE RPG in development.
“Innovation and interactivity are critical to the success of any media property,” said McMahon. “We were extremely pleased with the re-launch of our premium video game console franchise, WWE 2K. After taking a little more than a year off to improve the game engine, we worked hand-in-glove with our partners at Take-Two Interactive, listened to our customers and fans, and earned back their trust by delivering a game that exceeded their expectations. WWE 2K22 was a commercial and critical success, with the highest Metacritic scores on both Xbox and PlayStation platforms in franchise history, with over 5.6 million hours viewed on Twitch to date.”
She would go on to boast about the success of some of their mobile games and tease the idea of possibly doing a WWE RPG that may be announced soon, implying that it could possibly be a mobile game as well.
“We continue to see strength in the performance of our mobile games, with 2K and Scopely’s Supercard and Champions, and recently signed a new deal in the role-playing game space that will be announced soon. Gaming is a priority for WWE to reach our next-gen audience, with over 80% of WWE’s audience self-identifying as gamers, and nearly 60% of the gaming audience, in general, being 34 years or younger.”
WWE expanding their video game market certainly wouldn’t be a horrible idea, especially if the idea is to attract a younger fanbase. Wrestling video games were, at one point, some of the most popular and best-selling games on the market. An RPG would be an interesting idea though, especially considering the conjecture on what a real RPG is nowadays. A game modeled a bit after the old SmackDown games, particularly one like SmackDown: Shut Your Mouth, could do very well nowadays, but it looks more like it’ll be a mobile game than anything else.
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