Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) recognized the underwhelming financial results of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League during its Q1 2024 earnings call. Rocksteady Studios launched the game in February 2024, but it received mixed reviews and did not meet commercial expectations.
Jason Schrier revealed this news on X (formerly Twitter) as he was listening to the call. Several reasons may have caused the game to struggle. Firstly, making Suicide Squad a live-service looter shooter apparently didn’t align with players’ wants. This was a sequel to the Arkham series, and many were hoping for a single-player experience similar to Rocksteady’s previous games. Furthermore, the early gameplay footage was poorly received, and the game’s launch resulted in mediocre reviews, with an average Metacritic score of 60.
While the gameplay and art of the game were amazing, it had a really lackluster story. It was clearly not of the quality that would make a sequel to an acclaimed franchise, and it felt like it didn’t care about what had happened before. It was poorly written, in my opinion.
The sales figures for the title have not been officially disclosed, but according to Forbes, they were considerably lower than expected. Although the title debuted at the top of the PlayStation charts, it quickly fell out of the top 10. On Steam, it received less than half the peak player count of Marvel’s Avengers at launch. Currently, Suicide Squad has fewer than 200 concurrent players on Steam, which is lower than Marvel’s Avengers, despite the latter no longer being sold.
The emphasis on a live service approach seems to be having negative results. Updates to the content have been sluggish, and the recent season, which focused on the Joker, did not manage to spark renewed interest. It is said that upcoming seasons will showcase even less popular characters. The strategy of providing free content with paid cosmetic items has not resulted in substantial earnings due to the small number of active players.
Overall, the company didn’t meet analyst revenue expectations and experienced a significant decline compared to Q1 2023, when Hogwarts Legacy was a big success. WBD recognized Suicide Squad as a major financial loss and took an impairment charge for it.
Industry experts and articles are worried that Rocksteady Studios could face major repercussions due to the failure of its latest game. It’s doubtful that Rocksteady will be closed down, but any smaller studios under WB may take the hit instead. Additionally, WBD CEO David Zaslav’s plan to focus on live service games is being doubted following the disappointing performance of Suicide Squad.
Comments