Tony Khan believes in his video game investment.
On June 15, Forbes published a feature article on AEW that noted the company had invested eight figures into the video game department, which would keep the company in the red.
Speaking to Mike Johnson at PWInsider, Khan discussed his investment and why he thinks it will pay off.
"I've made this huge investment into video games and it's comical to me that anybody would try to pull it… it goes to show that I think people will try and take a negative out of a positive sometimes because this is a hugely positive thing. Our wrestling company is very profitable. The only reason I won't net money this year on AEW in our second full year of operations, which is pretty amazing, frankly, for a startup that has had the level of investment that we've had behind AEW and the amount of time that this has been going, that we'll be significantly profitable already as a venture," he said.
Khan went on to reiterate that the wrestling side of things will be profitable and that he's proud AEW was able to keep everyone employed and add to its roster during the pandemic.
Circling back to the video game side of things, Khan said, "So that anybody would try and draw a negative out of the fact that the wrestling operation is profitable this year, but that the company technically won't be in the black because I'm making this huge investment into gaming and video games. It's crazy because like that's going to be an even bigger investment that's going to pay off huge that I've made this huge eight figure investment in video games because that we won't see any revenue from that until 2022. That's why it's not going to pay off in 2021 on our books. We put $20 million into Epic Games, which looks pretty smart now because it's worth a lot more than that now. So gaming is something we know a lot about, and I happen to work with very closely a gaming expert by the name of Kenny Omega who's put together some great ideas and is doing a great job, uh, along with Nick Sobek and a lot of other great people I work with. We're going to deliver a great game for people next year, and we're going to make a ton of money. We'll be very profitable on all things next year. But this year is a profitable wrestling year for us and that's big and making a big investment in gaming is a good thing. It shows the health and the stability of the company. So it just goes to show that like, if you want to try and draw a negative out of something positive that there's people on Twitter that will try and do that sometimes."
AEW has already launched its casino mobile game, which is constantly being updated. Its second mobile game, Elite GM, recently had its first open beta testing session. It is unknown when the AEW console game will be released, but AEW did show off early footage featuring Darby Allin.
You can view the footage and screenshots by clicking here.
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