Owen Rees

Owen Rees is the Group Head of Licensing at Games Workshop, owners of the legendary Warhammer IP. He's been involved in video game licensing there for over 17 years - and in that time has worked on almost all the licensed video games released since Dawn of War 2 in 2009, including most recently Total War: Warhammer, Darktide, and Space Marine 2. He has a deep understanding of what makes for a great licensed video game and the benefits of using IP for developers and publishers and knows the industry well.  

The Power of Evergreen IPs and Their Place in Powering Sustainable Video Games

(Note: Evergreen IPs are those with heritage, legacy, those that are continuous content without single bubble moments)

Creating new IP can be hard, expensive, and risky at launch (especially for big budget games). As the industry readjusts after the pandemic boom years, utilizing an evergreen licensed IP can be a safe harbour in stormy waters, but it can also be a springboard for creative success beyond the license.

In this roundtable, join Owen Rees (Games Workshop, Warhammer Licensing) to discuss how established evergreen IPs could be a springboard for a company’s own efforts and IP game franchises as well as how they could raise the profile of studios and their work to further build their own IPs, reputation, profile, and efforts in the gaming player community. 

Discussion questions include: 

• How should you create a sustainable ecosystem/portfolio of licensed IPs and own IPs to helping build your own evergreen gaming IP in time?
• How could we use the depth of IPs to build long term sustainable games?
• How can you take advantage of a boom cycle to make these evergreen licensed IP games accessible even further? Especially with the coming adoption of streaming?