Warner Bros. Admits They Have A Serious DC Failure On Their Hands
What could have been another home run for game developer Rocksteady has become a financial nightmare for its parent company, Warner Bros., as company executives admit that the sluggish performance of its most recent game is proving to be problematic. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League had a release that was highly anticipated for more than three years, only to be receive a reception by gamers that has been lukewarm at best.
Suicide Squad Is DOA
Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Financial Officer, Gunnar Wiedenfels revealed during a recent interview that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has failed to bring in the revenue it was originally expected to generate, setting up what is likely to be a down year for its subsidiary, Rocksteady Studios. While sales totals were not released, the $70 game has seen its peak number of players on Steam drop from over 13,000 to less than 900 in the last reported 24-hour period. This has become a disappointment for both Warner Bros. and Rocksteady, especially considering the major hit they had on their hands in 2023.
It’s Certainly No Hogwarts Legacy
Another Warner Bros. licensed property, last year’s Hogwarts Legacy, was a monster hit that was released early in the first quarter. Eventually, the sales from the fantasy game led it to becoming the best-selling video game that year. For Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to even begin to compete with those numbers would take a miracle.
Rocksteady’s Beginnings
The game’s developer, Rocksteady, has a long-standing history of successful games since its inception in 2004. Founded by Jamie Walker and Sefton Hill, the British gaming company first made waves in 2006 with the release of Urban Chaos: Riot Response. Following that game’s success on multiple console formats, Rocksteady dove right into creating thematic games in a genre that quickly became their staple–the DC Universe releases that eventually paved the way to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
The Warner Bros. Acquisition
Under Walker and Hill’s leadership, Rocksteady’s majority control was eventually bought out by Warner Bros., following the massive success of the Batman: Arkham Asylum. Several other Batman titles followed over the next decade, with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League announced as going into development in 2020. But before the ill-fated game was completed, Walker and Hill abruptly left Rocksteady in late 2022 to form Hundred Stars Studios.
The Game Hasn’t Helped Rocksteady Or Warner Bros.
This begs the questions of whether the pitfalls that are inherent in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League could have been avoided altogether had the Rocksteady founders still been at the helm throughout the entirety of the game’s production. As 2024 is well under way, industry experts and financial analysts certainly agree that the dismal performance of the latest DC Universe game has really made it challenging for the company to show growth from last year’s numbers.
he game’s poor performance does nothing to help Rocksteady’s parent company, Warner Bros., whose poor earnings in the studio segment of the entertainment giant over the last 12 months caused its stock to plummet by more than 11 points in early trading last Friday.
Source: IGN
