I honestly cant understand how they release a GAAS, it fails and the conclusion is to make more.
Why do they think Suicide Squad fail? Is nobody gonna tell them that in the public's eyes the game was done from the start when they realized it was GAAS?
edit: obviously, it was a combination of the game being GAAS + coming from Rocksteady who only made singeplayer games until then and didnt release anything since 2017, but still.
Why do they think Suicide Squad fail? Is nobody gonna tell them that in the public's eyes the game was done from the start when they realized it was GAAS?
edit: obviously, it was a combination of the game being GAAS + coming from Rocksteady who only made singeplayer games until then and didnt release anything since 2017, but still.
I love how their other big game, the harry potter one was like the biggest sales success of the year and instead of following that and making a normal licensed game, they go "WE NEED MORE LIVE SERVICE GAAS STUFF!
I don't want to be a doomer, but I just don't see Rocksteady bouncing back from this. Arkham City is one of my favorite games ever, this sucks so much.
I don't even dislike GAAS titles on any inherent level, but these big publishers insistence on trying to chase after their own "forever game" is going to do a lot more damage.
I don't even dislike GAAS titles on any inherent level, but these big publishers insistence on trying to chase after their own "forever game" is going to do a lot more damage.
The horrible truth is that we're in an era where voting with your dollar on single player games no longer means that they strive to make better single player games. They pivot to live service games and then when those flop, they close studios. Ugh.
I do not anticipate Rocksteady surviving this.
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Next big title from WB Games is MultiVersus which is another GAAS game. Wonder Woman is single-player and might drop sometime next year. Montreal are MIA after Gotham Knights. Avalanche just released Hogwarts and have no plans for DLC. NetherRealm just released MK1. Rocksteady are supporting KtJL (though maybe WB might pull the plug on this one soon).
We're at that point in time again where projects are early in production/getting greenlit. If WB are doubling down on GAAS like they've said they will then the majority of these studios are cooked.
which is a bit silly, they would twist any result they have into "oh live-service is definitely the way to go"
Arkham + Hogwarts = Success
Live-service Justice League = Massive Failure
lesson taken = do the second thing again
Let's see what WB does after this.
I fear for Rocksteady honestly and hope they get a chance to focus on a SP game again.
It's not so black and white, because HP is probably a stronger brand too unfortunately, but find it funny Hogwarts Legacy did well as an SP game, while Suicide Squad didn't do well as a Live Service game, yet their position still seems to be to focus on Live Services. Guess we'll see if they continue to stick to that.
I fear for Rocksteady honestly and hope they get a chance to focus on a SP game again.
It's not so black and white, because HP is probably a stronger brand too unfortunately, but find it funny Hogwarts Legacy did well as an SP game, while Suicide Squad didn't do well as a Live Service game, yet their position still seems to be to focus on Live Services. Guess we'll see if they continue to stick to that.
"We're proud to announce 'Harry Potter Kills the Justice League'"
Do we have any idea how much Anthem cost to develop?
This has had substantially fewer sales and players than Anthem from the start, there's a very real possibility it is a bigger financial flop.
Some WB exec literally said a few weeks or so back that the lesson they're gonna take from Hogwarts success and Squads failure is that they've got to find a way to live service up Harry Potter.
They ain't learning.
They ain't learning.
Allow me to reword it for you:
"The intervention of our executive leadership team in the development of Suicide Squad lead to a $200,000,000 hit to revenue. Rocksteady consistently advised our leadership team that its intended strategy did not align with the stellar history of Rocksteady which was completely ignored in the pursuit of profit."
"The intervention of our executive leadership team in the development of Suicide Squad lead to a $200,000,000 hit to revenue. Rocksteady consistently advised our leadership team that its intended strategy did not align with the stellar history of Rocksteady which was completely ignored in the pursuit of profit."
Wonder if Rocksteady will survive this
These muppets don't care about having a sustainable business, just about hitting the lottery on another Fortnite
These muppets don't care about having a sustainable business, just about hitting the lottery on another Fortnite
What is their intention with the hogwarts IP? Are they not doing a single player sequel?
I dont understand how you can compare the 2 and decide u need more live service risks
To be clear, I'm not defending turning every game into a live service game, but it is a bit more nuanced than that. Suicide Squad didn't fail just because it was a live service game, that really wasn't it's biggest issue. Take away the live service elements and you're still left with a mediocre third person open world action game with a story people aren't terribly interested in seeing, from a developer who audiences expect something much different from.
On the flip side, there's probably a reality where Hogwarts offers more opportunities for monetization without it becoming a full-fledged live service game. Something like a cosmetic storefront similar to what Ubi does with Assassin's Creed could work. People are cynical towards those, but they're ultimately pretty harmless.
I just think the term "live service" can be a a spectrum, and incorporating live service elements doesn't inherently turn a game into a Suicide Squad or a Destiny.
Well, this is a better article about Rocksteady than I thought I'd be reading today.
Although it feels likes it's only a matter of time…
Although it feels likes it's only a matter of time…
The suits in charge of these decisions should be the ones being fired and not the quality studios that face closures.
As much as I don't like a rocksteady game being live service, I don't think that being live service per se was the issue, the gameplay was terrible, and the way they choose to do the live service didn't helped either, but if your gameplay is flawed the retention is null and live service live of retention.
Nah Anthem sold 5mil and *supposedly* made EA profit. Suicide Squad is definitely one of the biggest flops.
Someone needs to leak all the internal warnings that I'm sure were flagged up before development and during it. There will be people that knew. I suppose after a certain point, you're committed and just have to make the best of it.
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Here's the earnings release directly from WB if you want to read through it
Warner Bros. Discovery - Financials - Quarterly Results
Would be an even dumber closure than Tango, considering Rocksteady has delivered multiple critical and commercial success before being forced to do something they were never good at doing.
The reaction to this isn't to close Rocksteady, it's to get them to make a new Batman Arkham game that plays it as much to their strengths as possible. They might not be terribly excited about making another Batman but they're currently in the doghouse after delivering a massive flop. So they can bite the bullet for a game or two, regain some clout, and then branch out a bit after
Whatever analyst at WB thought this game would do these numbers fundamentally does not understand how the gaming world works.
Almost all money people are morons at big corps.
Almost all money people are morons at big corps.
It's the latter and the exact amount of the Suicide Squad impairment loss cannot be determined from the financial data presented.
Massive loss, but comparing sales with Hogwarts Legacy is stupid. That game was always going to be massive.