Hollywood's consolidation crisis mirrors gaming's — and regulators might finally push back

California attorney general Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday to block Paramount's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing the deal would hand four companies control of over 85 percent of all wide-release theatrical films in the United States. Twelve states in total are backing the suit, including New York, Massachusetts, and Washington. The merger would also give Paramount and Disney alone nearly 60 percent of all basic cable television in the country.

The piece draws a direct line between Hollywood's consolidation trajectory and what the games industry has already lived through. Embracer and Microsoft are the clearest examples — both went on aggressive acquisition sprees, then shed studios almost as fast as they bought them, contributing to tens of thousands of layoffs across the industry over the past few years. The argument is that Hollywood is heading down the same road, just more slowly. The Paramount side of the equation is already complicated: David Ellison took over the company via a merger with his firm Skydance in 2025, and the acquisition cleared the FCC after Paramount agreed to pay the Trump administration $16 million to settle a lawsuit over a 60 Minutes segment, and later canceled Stephen Colbert's Late Show. FCC chair Brendan Carr is currently investigating Disney for alleged DEI discrimination and has largely dismissed the state-level challenges to the Warner Bros. deal. UK communications regulators may also weigh in.

If the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger goes through, the combined entity would control CNN, HBO, DC, WB Games, Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, and a century-long film library — on top of Paramount's existing slate. That's a significant chunk of English-language media under a single ownership structure with documented ties to the current U.S. administration. The games industry's consolidation wave offers a cautionary tale here: the deals looked like growth plays right up until the point studios started closing and headcounts collapsed. Regulators waved most of them through, and the damage followed.

The lawsuit is a long shot — the political environment at the federal level is not friendly to this kind of intervention — but the coalition of 12 state attorneys general signals that at least some officials are treating the gaming industry's recent history as a warning rather than a template. Whether that's enough to slow or stop the deal remains to be seen.