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WindowsCentral: Rocksteady's 'Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League' sinks to an all-time low player base on Steam (118 concurrent players)
- Thread starter IDontBeatGames
- Start date
There's also the very real concept of not getting burned twice. Sticking with a game you're already invested in until EOS and starting a new game with a similar trajectory are 2 whole different things.
I feel this way too. I think it's because the reporting on this shitshow has been so long. Like it was almost a year ago that they showed off gameplay and it wasn't looking good. So then they delayed the game. Rinse and repeat on the news cycle about it and here we are. We've been hearing about this game and its failure for so long lol
I feel for the fans of this game every time a new thread pops up. I was a fan of Marvel's Avengers and the conversation around it became exhausting. I hope that the full battle pass leak comes true at least.
I feel it's impossible they're keeping the roadmap going on with such terrible numbers and sales.
Maybe some other season when the game comes into some kind of subscription service, but not much more.
Avengers had way better numbers than this in comparison.
Sure, but the metric is still useful if you're comparing it to other games using the same metric. It's tough to imagine a game with 1000 peak CCU having fewer DAU than a game with 100 peak CCU. You're right that this doesn't tell the whole story of how many people are playing Suicide Squad in a day, but it should still be a good sign of how well Suicide is doing relative to other games.
Long story short, there's almost no reality where Suicide Squad is doing less than 200 daily CCU on steam, but WB is still okay with the game's performance because the slack is being picked up elsewhere
Shout out to the lone Arkham City warrior
Batman: Arkham Origins also has more players, but I omitted it since it was a different studio.
As someone who enjoyed the game and has/will actively defend it, I can't really argue with the low player counts now. They fumbled the ball so hard that it augered into the center of the earth with that first season.
I like the game and it wasn't nearly enough to bring me back once I finished it. All they did was provide another lesson on not trusting pre-release hype on the support a game would receive.
There's gotta be a case study as to what the fuck was happening at Rocksteady between Arkham Knight/VR and this mess. That's over eight years. Surely there had to have been other projects that fell by the wayside during that timeframe?
They must be holding on to the reality where GaFWL exists and is good.
on topic: these numbers do not bode well for that promise of an offline mode before they shut this one down.
They should just take the L and announce this game would be abandoned without a future roadmap.
Obviously a huge waste of time and money
Obviously a huge waste of time and money
Yeah, I take no delight in this. I don't intend to ever play the game, but I hope Rocksteady come out the other end of this with their workforce intact.
If there's not enough people being served, is there a point (commercially) in doing so?
An unfortunate situation from the devs. The game itself doesn't *deserve* to do better, but the studio definitely does.
Hopefully WB gives them another chance and let's them make a product people actually want, but I doubt it.
Hopefully WB gives them another chance and let's them make a product people actually want, but I doubt it.
OP
OP
This thread will have more posts than players on SSKTJL after this post which is #119 just think about that lol
Most of the Arkham leads including the heads of the studio itself bailed.
I'd actually be curious
They still have several emergency levers to pull.
Make it free to start to give players a taste of the campaign and then take the check to put it on subscription services.
I would be shocked if the game doesn't see all 4 seasons release. Pared back content, sure, but at this point it's sunk cost and I highly doubt whatever game they are working on next is far enough along to need every body on it.
Make it free to start to give players a taste of the campaign and then take the check to put it on subscription services.
I would be shocked if the game doesn't see all 4 seasons release. Pared back content, sure, but at this point it's sunk cost and I highly doubt whatever game they are working on next is far enough along to need every body on it.
Its weird. I found/find the game fun.
I think the marketing and posturing of DLC was a mistake.
If future DLC will include new areas and characters, sell that and make the battle pass extras the "perk" for playing more.
I would pay for more characters and new areas (like Smash), but I don't know if I'm paying for another battle pass that I have to grind to get the next character.
I think the marketing and posturing of DLC was a mistake.
If future DLC will include new areas and characters, sell that and make the battle pass extras the "perk" for playing more.
I would pay for more characters and new areas (like Smash), but I don't know if I'm paying for another battle pass that I have to grind to get the next character.
YT views and like ratio are worth discussing in terms of gauging interest. While I agree about repeatedly bringing them up, no discussion about them seems short sighted.
Batman: Arkham Origins also has more players, but I omitted it since it was a different studio.
...
Damn lol
And the idiots at WB still want to double down on this shit.
Maybe WB learns the right lesson here and stops trying to make Suicide Squad a fucking thing. Nobody wants it. Fucking stop.
Sad too see this outcome from the studio who changed "Licensed games are bad." narrative. I am definitely not happy with where current AAA industry is going. Didn't devs see the success of Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate III? And failure of Anthem, Fallout 76, Avengers?
What the?
If Rocksteady dies, the studio closes down, and now we have hundreds more jobless people, in an industry where it's currently really tough to find a job. That would be an awful thing to happen or wish for.
Also, Rocksteady is an incredible team, that was likely just a bit out of their depth on this one project. They absolutely deserve to keep making games, even under Warner Brothers (Warner was an incredible publisher up until recently, so hopefully they find a great direction for Rocksteady that plays to their strengths).
If Warner is still trying to force Rocksteady to make GAAS games, perhaps they can find a way to incorporate some GAAS features into an Arkham Knight sequel or prequel. Considering Knight currently has like 20x the active player base after years of zero updates, that sounds like a smart move to me. Serve the market with a sequel to an excellent, highly in demand series. Make it open world and highly repayable just like the other games in the series. Sell cosmetics, and feed players with extra content to keep them playing.
I think an issue is that it's actually two big IP's which people seem to ignore, only you play as the characters from the IP that is a lot less iconic and popular, one based on villains, not only that, but you then kill the heroes of that very much more popular and iconic IP, who for the most part spend the entire game brainwashed so you don't really interact with them.
Just saying, from Suicide Squad, only Harley Quinn has a cartoon and comics, the Justice League...each member has several comic books, and more tv show and movie appearances than anyone from Suicide Squad.
And the Justice League haven't had a proper game in ages, closest is Injustice 2 where Superman is evil and it's a fighting game, and they have cooler abilities or gadgets than the Suicide Squad...so i bet a few wondered why the hell the game wasn't about them instead.
the story was boring compare to previous Arkham games . its even worse than Gotham knights and I hate Gotham nights ending. the good thing was that the game was short
gameplay wise its reminded me of Agents of Mayhem which wasn't that great to begin with
+ bad gfx and glitches.
and after finishing Suicide Squad, I have added Rocksteady to "wait for sale/bargain bin" tier because I wasted 99 fucking dollars on this shit.
but in the end its my opinion so
lets agree to disagree
You are asking for a slow death. Layoffs every game that fails. So instead of them dying with 1 bad game, they die with 5 bad games under their belt.
And WB doesn't care that some people are playing the old game. They are looking at other GAAS games.
Hey at least you can know everyone and everyone can know you! They should just make it one happy server family.
They also see the massive amount of money that Fallout 76 (It's still alive and doing pretty well, all things considered), Fortnite, Destiny, et cetera do. Hell, two random ass MP games nobody knew or gave a damn about in January, Palworld and Helldivers just absolutely rocked the world (HD II absolutely styling all over Suicide Squad).
You can't just say "Look at these two absolutely amazing, once-in-a-generation single player games and these three failed live services, one of which did have a turnaround", and act like actually replicating BGIII or ER's success is any less a pipe dream than thinking Suicide Squad could've been the next Fortnite.
You can make absolute bank if you have a successful AAA single player. But you can also make absolute bank to an insane degree if you have a successful AAA live service. That's the thing, we all like SP, but that's nothing like a sure bet either. EA resurrected Dead Space off of RE's pivot back to AAA horror... and apparently killed it off because AAA horror only works if you're Capcom. Game dev is an inherently risky business--yes, there was a much safer path for Rocksteady to do (Make Arkham 4/5), but they wanted to make an MP shooter according to Schrier, and DC wanted that sweet DCU brand synergy.
In this day and age, a studio that gets to make 5 games could mean they keep their doors open for another 25-30 years. That is a great thing, I'm not sure why you would advocate against that. Also, there is nothing to say that Rocksteady is in any phase of slow death. Wishing for one of the greatest studios of all time to shut their doors because they had one misstep seems like an odd position to take. Imagine if IO Interactive just shut down and stopped trying after Kane a Lynch did poorly. We would have never gotten the incredible new Hitman trilogy. Now they are one of the most acclaimed studios in the industry. Rocksteady is incredible at making narrative focused single player games. I think it's best to hope they get to learn from their mistakes here and come out swinging on their next title.
But hey, you are free to feel how you like, even if I feel your frustration is misplaced. I could understand someone hoping that Rocksteady goes independent, but I would personally never wish for a studio like that to just shut down. I assume your real beef here should be with Warner, not Rocksteady.
I am just done clinging to things that don't exist. I want them to work in a better place, you want them stuck with WB.
I mean, it could very well be. We don't have sales numbers, and UK salaries are lower which might mitigate the budget, but this game was in development for seven years and Warner Bros. said it fell short of their expectations. By the numbers (expenses vs revenues), it's perfectly reasonable to guess that this is one of the biggest flops in video game history. Remember, video games are significantly more expensive to make in 2024 than they were in previous decades, so the biggest flops are more likely to happen in modern times.
From what I've been told, the game sold terribly on PC and Xbox, but did okay on PS5. It also had no legs, and PS5 sales fell off a cliff in week 2. There really hasn't been any noticeable uptick since. Overall, the game's market performance has bottomed out their worst case scenario.
It also spent a long time in development, apparently owing to the IP pivot. And they spent a boatload on marketing initiatives that frequently hurt more than helped. I can't speculate on where it stands against other titles, I'm not that well-versed in industry goings-on, but it's undoubtedly a disaster for WB.
I am not sure about Fallout 76 sales but according to this https://gamerant.com/bethesda-games-best-selling-ranked/ the game had 1.4 million sales in 2018. Which is very low compared to other BGS hits like Skyrim and Fallout 4.
Rocksteady are based in London though, where salaries (and cost of living) are as high as the UK gets. Probably still not squaring up to a Silicon Valley joint in terms of cost, but...
I mean probably ain't wrong, 250 developers based in London, with a game development time of roughly 6 years. Plus marketing budget and now how much it is costing them to upkeep and develop more seasonal content for how little many are playing. No doubt at the end of its life it will be one of the biggest flops, both profits and opportunity cost.
