Adapted from the famous superhero franchise, this devastating failure cost Warner $200 million

After his release Batman: Arkham Knight, 9 years ago Now, you can’t say that a new game from Rocksteady studio has been a long time coming. If it’s been delayed a few times, it’s because the studio has paid for ongoing changes imposed by Warner.

La Major wanted to reboot Suicide Squad after rebooting the 2016 film, then asked the studio to make it phosphorica. Kill the Justice League. But, contrary to the trademark of this brilliant studio, this game is designed not only to be played, but as a GAAS, that is Game as a servicewith several players.

The pre-release gameplay demos didn’t really put fans at ease… finally releasing on January 30th, 2024 after months of delays, the reception was frosty. It was even disastrous for the studio and its publisher.

Absolute loss of 200 million dollars

According to journalist Jason Schreier from Bloomberg website, Suicide Squad – Kill the Justice League Warner lost $200 million. David Haddad, head of Warner’s video game division, made the announcement during a conference call with shareholders in early May. This absolutely colossal slate places the game among the industry’s biggest failures.

The failure is so significant that it may go beyond Warner and “Preventing more traditional media companies from investing in video games when they should be growing “ New York University professor Jost van Dreunen comments as quoted in the Bloomberg article.

The reason for this failure is not unique. Instead, the journalist cites a combination of several factors: a creative vision that was vague and highly variable, the direction of the studio towards a completely new genre for him and in which he was inexperienced. Or the problematic perfectionism of former creative director Sefton Hill, who left the team before the game’s release to run a new studio.

Ironically, the Bloomberg article states that Warner was quite happy with the project’s – admittedly chaotic – progress. “They kept sending glowing reviews of the game, praising the graphics and saying they expected Suicide Squad to become a billion-dollar franchise.”. We can’t say that Warner’s thinking executives were too far-sighted in the face of the impending disaster…

Fiasco after absolute triumph in 2023

Still, this painful setback comes at the worst possible time for the Warner Group, which is struggling on multiple fronts, including falling advertising revenue on its TV channels and shrinking theater attendance.

The video games division appears to have escaped the storm warning that affected other branches of the group… Suicide Squad – Kill the Justice League. In two years, Warner’s stock price went from $26 in April 2022 to $8 in early May 2024, when the game’s disastrous results were announced.

This is all the more poignant because in 2023, Hogwarts Legacy, based on the Harry Potter license, was the absolute best-selling video game of the year, selling over 24 million copies worldwide.