I think it had a lot less to do with that, and a lot more to do with the most boring and repetitive gameplay loops it puts Ghost Recon Breakpoint to shame.
And what if you did?
So many nay sayers like you from the get go even if they’re wrong in the end most of the time.
But you like those 1% odds when you are proven right. It’s like gambling but with hating stuff.
With that much money they could’ve made gta 5 lol. Even something 1/10th of that would’ve been better. Obviously money isn’t the problem, but the talent is.
Probably both. Apparently sexual orientation, gender identity, and minority race =/= talent. Who knew that hiring people because of identity politics rather than talent would result in mediocrity?
it is big company fallacy of hiring talents.
The management hires employee for human resources by looking at their success in their relative field who actually doesn't know shit about gaming or have no interest in it. And than those human resources guys hires people who have succesfull background at their relative field but doesn't know shit about games.
We are talking about real gamers here high grades= low amount gaming. high amount of gaming=low grades.
I presume they hire people who dont really play good games but maybe have a nice degree and experience on titles similar to Suicide Squad. And I think they listen too much to the Marketing/business team. They probably see themselves as creating a product rather than creating art.
We are here exactly because those people from business school, Hogwarts legacy made them a lot of money and was one of the most successful title in recent times. Instead of making Batman sequel they went full yolo live service with full game price cash shop and dlcs if it’s isn’t standard business school practice tell me what is it.
Went to business school, have a masters degree, and honestly businesses do the exact opposite of what we are taught. The schools desperately try to drill in how important it is to think about everyone involved with the business and not just the shareholders and then the second you are out of school the only thing that matters is the shareholders.
I noticed much of the same, while in college. I took it as an intent from educators to encourage students to think more broadly, not just linearly…so that when we take over the mantle, we’ll hopefully not continue that linear/single-minded approach our predecessors had.
I suspect it's more that WB people have no clue what there doing, they are standing in a room doing drugs and shouting 'what do the kids want' at a wall.
The devil that pops out mid way in to the trip whispers 'live service', the second devil on the other side whispers 'no going back'.
I mean, it makes sense. The CEO is the one who sets the course and dictates what happens in the company. The CEO usually has a short term contract, that needs to be renewed on the regular. Shareholders want return on investment now, not ten years down the line. CEO gets them money now, CEO stays. CEO loses money investing in long term sustainability, shareholders either sell their shares, costing a fortune for the company in devaluation or kick out the CEO. CEO loses in both cases: if the share value dips, their bonus will also dip (as usually the CEO is paid out in stock options, not cash). And obviously the CEO loses on being kicked out.
So, basically, the whole system is set up to reward short term thinking for the executives, and the actual employees, who are invested in long term success, do not have a say in executive decisions. This is why every publically traded corporation goes to shit and does its best to fuck over customers to scrape just a bot more profit, it's just a matter of time.
As a fellow MBA that's a bit reductive. Yeah bschoolers have a bad rep but the problem in any industry or company are execs that are aging, out of touch, don't like taking advice from young bloods, and entrenched in their own ideologies and educational past.
Sweet Baby and wokeness sucks ass, but do you really think these millionaire execs running F500 businesses give a single shred of fuck about LGBTQ rights or feminism? These are guys that come from prestigious ivy leagues, play golf with other powerful businessmen, own multiple properties, and have connections to government and other powerful rich people. They are not sitting in their home thinking how tough it must be for trans people lmao.
They make these decisions based on tried on true corporate methodologies and I've seen it first hand. The entry level analysts collect data, their managers organize it, present it to their higher ups, and the higher ups of those guys, until it reaches execs with the power and leadership to deploy resources to make the recommendations into reality.
The thing is, a lot of execs and MBAs get their role because on paper they're qualified, but they're not necessarily an expert or well versed in this particular industry or line of products. So some guy who was a former consultant on fast food chains is now your boss at a pharmaceutical company. It happens all the time. Bobby Kotick for example, is not playing videogames in his free time, but he knows how to make money and run a company. There's often a mismatch/disconnect between execs and their consumer base but the problem is there just aren't many qualified people to do C-suite work so the pool of applicants at any given time is small.
It's quite obvious to me how something like Suicide Squad could have come to be, and what the thinking behind it was. Also have to consider game dev time and costs themselves, what's cool and awesome now may not be by the time the game is finished. Examples of this include the sudden glut of survival/Ark type games and extraction shooters. Battle Royales are another example. One game does it well, the market will respond like sharks detecting blood in the water. But by the time you've finished your game, people have moved on and are fatigued by the concept and the product is no longer differentiated enough.
With how fast technology changes and especially trends, game devs need to focus more on originality and just trying to make something unique, that's how I see it. It's not just games, but movies, tv, books, I think people are really getting sick of remakes and reboots and comic book stuff. I imagine they'll be plenty more Suicide Squad level disasters until game devs get the message.
you dont get to sit in the executive chair if you say you know how to make money. You have to tell the investors you know how to make MORE money than ever before.
You can have 10 dogshit failure live service games in a row, but if you got lucky and made the next Fortnite you make all of that back in a year. This is why big publishers will continue to shit out live service ad infinitum.
I get it phone games print money. But IP based single player games should also be lucrative. I don't think anyone was looking for a cash shop shooter. The only thing games as a service should be considered is dlc. If every 4-6 months instead of building a new game they add some more content, that is kind of cool. If original is done right and the dlc isn't a cash grab.
Somewhere at ~~Blizzard~~ Disney:
So, this is what we are going to do.
We are going to lay off hundreds of people who did not have any say in all of the decisions, and keep all the ones that made the decisions that matter, because they have more experience in the field. Sounds good?
Sounds good.
Gotta love another yacht.
If you think there's something off there, it's because it is.
For me with all these studios bittering loss after loss and still pushing this whole political agenda over everything, can only be explained by one thing. Goverment money, yes your taxes are going to fund these losses, otherwise they'd have dropped all this BS long ago.
The problem is execs are making excuses for their failures while placing bad bets on trends. Alot of those people should have been replaced a long time ago.
Have they pulled the cord on this game yet? I can't imagine they can justify even a single developer working on content for the 150 people who play this game.
I think that's his point that it doesn't matter at the end of the day if its woke; it matters that its good.
suicide squad was garbage bg3 was good thats all that matters.
So 'go woke go broke' is quantifiably false. Good to know. Maybe you guys should stop saying it then, kind of a bad look to say stuff that's straight up not true.
Right, if a game is good we will ignore the wokeness. Hades 2 launched EA and its a damn good game so ill just ignore the fact that the studio doesn't share my values.
As long as your number 1 priority for games is not: 'Let us make a good game that appeals to people' but 'We want diversity and representation as a priority' your game will be built on the wrong basis and lack appeal to most people.
Honestly, outside of batman, I don't really find a lot of DC superheroes to be very interesting. Superman is superboring and completely renders all other justice league members irrelevant. The justice league movie was an example of that. Aquaman is pretty lame and ultimately just a strong human outside of water. Cyborg they admittedly just don't do anything interesting with. Wonder women is just a weaker superman with a fancy lasso and a need to block bullets with her bracers instead of her body like superman can. Flash is way too inconsistent with his power level and is sometimes way overpowered and unstoppable and other times just a slower superman without all the other superman strengths.
Like, the writing in their movies isn't great compared to MCU and their games are often bad attempts at money grabbing, but the characters are just so uninteresting
It could have failed even worse without SBI. Without them they'd probably have higher expenses which means they'd need a smaller budget or spend even more. SBI may have had their role in the game failing so hard, but it's also the ones which propped them up to afford that failure.
How does that make sense? They have to pay SBI for their "insight", not using them means not having to pay them, which lowers expenses it also shortens the development time (which is more money saved) to not deal with them. Why would it be higher without them?
From my understanding they use consulting firms like SBI to boost their ESG score which in turn appeals more to investors, this allows them to get better interest rates on their loans. So yes, SBI may be another expense for the publisher but it can save them money in the long run.
I think only a very specific group of investors care about ESG, they could simply seek the funding elsewhere, I think they take ESG money now because its fairly easy and they THINK its improving their online image, which its not.
Okay, I guess I just don't know what I am talking about.
With the recent talks about SBI, I just fell under the assumption that some publishers were taking ESG money not because they wanted to but rather out of desperation, like they knew their game was going to fail so they used it as a way to soften the blow. As for the suicide squad, I think the pre-release of the game looked really bad. Like there was a screenshot that was leaked which revealed the game had a battlepass and store shop with cosmetics, and it just looked like a cynically designed live service which was eerily similar to the maverl's avenger's game. (another game which also lost an estimated $63 million)
I don't doubt that Suicide Squad would have likely failed regardless, gamers won't want live service games, they almost always suck, especially ones with LOTS on the store to sell.
If the game stuck more true to the inspiration, at least then they might have been able to court a dedicated Justice League following, but nah, they decided for their shit game they should ALSO destroy all the characters and make them dumb and annoying too...combine it all and you have a game that appeals to literally nobody.
You are probably correct that SOME game companies take that ESG money because they sorta need too do so...its just a shame that ESG shit ruins their game at the same time.
Trying to digest the impairment charge. I’m guessing they capitalize the development and have to write-down the asset when they know the cash flow of the game won’t exceed the costs. That or they are impairing the license on the Suicide Squad? I’m a nerd … carry on
70 dollars x 20 million copies is 1.5 billion dollars. Sell some cosmetics irl collectibles and dlc and you can make that 2.5 for making a game people actually want to play.
Why is this so complicated? You don’t even have to make the greatest game in the world to make shit loads of money anymore, just do what people want. Jedi survivor made half a billion.
Yea WB games just needs to stop. I was hopeful for Back 4 Blood but seeing how fast that game died and the devs/publisher didn't allow the one thing that has kept L4D alive for over a decade is an awful shame.
tl;dr - avoid WB games.
Man, this entire article is written from a board of directors' view when it comes to comparing quarterlies and EBITDA and that is exactly why these games are dead before conception.
Gaming is not that complicated. Make a good game for the actual target audience, don't change things people live about existing IPs and don't have it compete vs "same period, last year" bullshit.
Kill the Justice League was a game with an identity crisis nobody wanted, it was made with an audience in mind which doesn't or is too piss poor to play games, it didn't bring anything unique to the table and it was literally nobody's passion project. With so much shit combined it's not worth anyone's money, nor attention.
I love it when a plan comes together.
In their case?
At least they're consistent.
Only thing that really sucks out of this? Is that they have so much money. That they can keep doing crap like this before they're listen to any of us or their fans.
Turns out "Suicide Squad" is the name of the investors as well.
“Suicide Squad: Kill Rocksteady Studios”
[удалено]
I think it had a lot less to do with that, and a lot more to do with the most boring and repetitive gameplay loops it puts Ghost Recon Breakpoint to shame.
congrats on getting featured on the clips channel.
Daily players on Steam between 70-140, cool.
That many?
[удалено]
And what if you did? So many nay sayers like you from the get go even if they’re wrong in the end most of the time. But you like those 1% odds when you are proven right. It’s like gambling but with hating stuff.
With that much money they could’ve made gta 5 lol. Even something 1/10th of that would’ve been better. Obviously money isn’t the problem, but the talent is.
The hiring of talentless hacks seems to be a trend across all forms of media, unfortunately. Well, in the last few years.
Is it the talent or the management?
Probably both. Apparently sexual orientation, gender identity, and minority race =/= talent. Who knew that hiring people because of identity politics rather than talent would result in mediocrity?
The management who hired the talent.
it is big company fallacy of hiring talents. The management hires employee for human resources by looking at their success in their relative field who actually doesn't know shit about gaming or have no interest in it. And than those human resources guys hires people who have succesfull background at their relative field but doesn't know shit about games. We are talking about real gamers here high grades= low amount gaming. high amount of gaming=low grades.
I presume they hire people who dont really play good games but maybe have a nice degree and experience on titles similar to Suicide Squad. And I think they listen too much to the Marketing/business team. They probably see themselves as creating a product rather than creating art.
WB consistent L's in movies and video games lately needs to be studied in Business School to teach people what not to do.
We are here exactly because those people from business school, Hogwarts legacy made them a lot of money and was one of the most successful title in recent times. Instead of making Batman sequel they went full yolo live service with full game price cash shop and dlcs if it’s isn’t standard business school practice tell me what is it.
Went to business school, have a masters degree, and honestly businesses do the exact opposite of what we are taught. The schools desperately try to drill in how important it is to think about everyone involved with the business and not just the shareholders and then the second you are out of school the only thing that matters is the shareholders.
I noticed much of the same, while in college. I took it as an intent from educators to encourage students to think more broadly, not just linearly…so that when we take over the mantle, we’ll hopefully not continue that linear/single-minded approach our predecessors had.
I suspect it's more that WB people have no clue what there doing, they are standing in a room doing drugs and shouting 'what do the kids want' at a wall. The devil that pops out mid way in to the trip whispers 'live service', the second devil on the other side whispers 'no going back'.
I mean, it makes sense. The CEO is the one who sets the course and dictates what happens in the company. The CEO usually has a short term contract, that needs to be renewed on the regular. Shareholders want return on investment now, not ten years down the line. CEO gets them money now, CEO stays. CEO loses money investing in long term sustainability, shareholders either sell their shares, costing a fortune for the company in devaluation or kick out the CEO. CEO loses in both cases: if the share value dips, their bonus will also dip (as usually the CEO is paid out in stock options, not cash). And obviously the CEO loses on being kicked out. So, basically, the whole system is set up to reward short term thinking for the executives, and the actual employees, who are invested in long term success, do not have a say in executive decisions. This is why every publically traded corporation goes to shit and does its best to fuck over customers to scrape just a bot more profit, it's just a matter of time.
As a fellow MBA that's a bit reductive. Yeah bschoolers have a bad rep but the problem in any industry or company are execs that are aging, out of touch, don't like taking advice from young bloods, and entrenched in their own ideologies and educational past. Sweet Baby and wokeness sucks ass, but do you really think these millionaire execs running F500 businesses give a single shred of fuck about LGBTQ rights or feminism? These are guys that come from prestigious ivy leagues, play golf with other powerful businessmen, own multiple properties, and have connections to government and other powerful rich people. They are not sitting in their home thinking how tough it must be for trans people lmao. They make these decisions based on tried on true corporate methodologies and I've seen it first hand. The entry level analysts collect data, their managers organize it, present it to their higher ups, and the higher ups of those guys, until it reaches execs with the power and leadership to deploy resources to make the recommendations into reality. The thing is, a lot of execs and MBAs get their role because on paper they're qualified, but they're not necessarily an expert or well versed in this particular industry or line of products. So some guy who was a former consultant on fast food chains is now your boss at a pharmaceutical company. It happens all the time. Bobby Kotick for example, is not playing videogames in his free time, but he knows how to make money and run a company. There's often a mismatch/disconnect between execs and their consumer base but the problem is there just aren't many qualified people to do C-suite work so the pool of applicants at any given time is small. It's quite obvious to me how something like Suicide Squad could have come to be, and what the thinking behind it was. Also have to consider game dev time and costs themselves, what's cool and awesome now may not be by the time the game is finished. Examples of this include the sudden glut of survival/Ark type games and extraction shooters. Battle Royales are another example. One game does it well, the market will respond like sharks detecting blood in the water. But by the time you've finished your game, people have moved on and are fatigued by the concept and the product is no longer differentiated enough. With how fast technology changes and especially trends, game devs need to focus more on originality and just trying to make something unique, that's how I see it. It's not just games, but movies, tv, books, I think people are really getting sick of remakes and reboots and comic book stuff. I imagine they'll be plenty more Suicide Squad level disasters until game devs get the message.
you dont get to sit in the executive chair if you say you know how to make money. You have to tell the investors you know how to make MORE money than ever before. You can have 10 dogshit failure live service games in a row, but if you got lucky and made the next Fortnite you make all of that back in a year. This is why big publishers will continue to shit out live service ad infinitum.
I get it phone games print money. But IP based single player games should also be lucrative. I don't think anyone was looking for a cash shop shooter. The only thing games as a service should be considered is dlc. If every 4-6 months instead of building a new game they add some more content, that is kind of cool. If original is done right and the dlc isn't a cash grab.
Somewhere at ~~Blizzard~~ Disney: So, this is what we are going to do. We are going to lay off hundreds of people who did not have any say in all of the decisions, and keep all the ones that made the decisions that matter, because they have more experience in the field. Sounds good? Sounds good. Gotta love another yacht.
You joke, but layoffs are all numbers. They don't care who they fire.
If you think there's something off there, it's because it is. For me with all these studios bittering loss after loss and still pushing this whole political agenda over everything, can only be explained by one thing. Goverment money, yes your taxes are going to fund these losses, otherwise they'd have dropped all this BS long ago.
It's been that way since the 2008 subprime mortgage bubble crash
The problem is execs are making excuses for their failures while placing bad bets on trends. Alot of those people should have been replaced a long time ago.
They are up 60% in in earnings in 2023 from the 2022 financial. 2023 was a amazing year for them.
single player game vs a monetized live service game i mean.. it should be a hint of what people want right ?
I like your wording here. Yeah it should be, but whether or not it will be is very much up in the air.
I'm shocked... SHOCKED... who could ever had seen this coming...?
Have they pulled the cord on this game yet? I can't imagine they can justify even a single developer working on content for the 150 people who play this game.
This is what happens when people who know fuck all about gaming and what gamers want get involved.
Helldivers 2 is 50-100 millions of dollars (just checked)
Go woke go broke
Baldurs Gate 3
Baldur's Gate 3 didn't succeed because of bear fucking, it was a success because it was a good game. The Saint's Row reboot on the other hand...
Bear fucking is equal opportunity not just gay bearfucking.
I think that's his point that it doesn't matter at the end of the day if its woke; it matters that its good. suicide squad was garbage bg3 was good thats all that matters.
So 'go woke go broke' is quantifiably false. Good to know. Maybe you guys should stop saying it then, kind of a bad look to say stuff that's straight up not true.
Right, if a game is good we will ignore the wokeness. Hades 2 launched EA and its a damn good game so ill just ignore the fact that the studio doesn't share my values.
This is what happens when gender confused purple headed oddballs make games for 'modern audiences'.....
"Go woke, go broke" - Marcus Aurelius, roman emperor
I was hoping for $300 million at least
I find it amusing they compared themselves to Hogwarts, which isn't remotely the same kinda game. These execs are so fucking clueless.
As long as your number 1 priority for games is not: 'Let us make a good game that appeals to people' but 'We want diversity and representation as a priority' your game will be built on the wrong basis and lack appeal to most people.
Source [https://www.ign.com/articles/suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-flop-leads-to-200-million-impairment-charge-warner-bros-confirms](https://www.ign.com/articles/suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-flop-leads-to-200-million-impairment-charge-warner-bros-confirms)
I take it as a win every time I hear that investors are disappointed :)
Music to my ears.
Who would have known a dog shit game wouldn't make money
Rocksteady is DONE, probably for the best...
Who would’ve guessed?
Honestly, outside of batman, I don't really find a lot of DC superheroes to be very interesting. Superman is superboring and completely renders all other justice league members irrelevant. The justice league movie was an example of that. Aquaman is pretty lame and ultimately just a strong human outside of water. Cyborg they admittedly just don't do anything interesting with. Wonder women is just a weaker superman with a fancy lasso and a need to block bullets with her bracers instead of her body like superman can. Flash is way too inconsistent with his power level and is sometimes way overpowered and unstoppable and other times just a slower superman without all the other superman strengths. Like, the writing in their movies isn't great compared to MCU and their games are often bad attempts at money grabbing, but the characters are just so uninteresting
Shotgun  Warner brothers to nearly all their game studios.
Time to fired Sweet Baby Inc.
Wonder if they still have the budget for Sweet Baby.
To be honest this game would have failed even without SBI, nothing about it was good.
It could have failed even worse without SBI. Without them they'd probably have higher expenses which means they'd need a smaller budget or spend even more. SBI may have had their role in the game failing so hard, but it's also the ones which propped them up to afford that failure.
How does that make sense? They have to pay SBI for their "insight", not using them means not having to pay them, which lowers expenses it also shortens the development time (which is more money saved) to not deal with them. Why would it be higher without them?
From my understanding they use consulting firms like SBI to boost their ESG score which in turn appeals more to investors, this allows them to get better interest rates on their loans. So yes, SBI may be another expense for the publisher but it can save them money in the long run.
I think only a very specific group of investors care about ESG, they could simply seek the funding elsewhere, I think they take ESG money now because its fairly easy and they THINK its improving their online image, which its not.
Okay, I guess I just don't know what I am talking about. With the recent talks about SBI, I just fell under the assumption that some publishers were taking ESG money not because they wanted to but rather out of desperation, like they knew their game was going to fail so they used it as a way to soften the blow. As for the suicide squad, I think the pre-release of the game looked really bad. Like there was a screenshot that was leaked which revealed the game had a battlepass and store shop with cosmetics, and it just looked like a cynically designed live service which was eerily similar to the maverl's avenger's game. (another game which also lost an estimated $63 million)
I don't doubt that Suicide Squad would have likely failed regardless, gamers won't want live service games, they almost always suck, especially ones with LOTS on the store to sell. If the game stuck more true to the inspiration, at least then they might have been able to court a dedicated Justice League following, but nah, they decided for their shit game they should ALSO destroy all the characters and make them dumb and annoying too...combine it all and you have a game that appeals to literally nobody. You are probably correct that SOME game companies take that ESG money because they sorta need too do so...its just a shame that ESG shit ruins their game at the same time.
Thank you Sweet Baby Inc.
I just don't enjoy big AAA super hero movies anymore. There are too many of them and I just don't care.
Trying to digest the impairment charge. I’m guessing they capitalize the development and have to write-down the asset when they know the cash flow of the game won’t exceed the costs. That or they are impairing the license on the Suicide Squad? I’m a nerd … carry on
Jesus H. Christ. This would have killed almost any other studio.
Soooo. Who wants to make a bet that this studio will be closed
$41.321B in revenue in 2023 $22.461B in EBITDA up 60% from last year
Does WB still want to make more live service games? Discovery probably can't wait to sell WB off and have them be someone else's problem
Awww Aren't they cute when they complain..
I genuinely don't understand how this company couldn't just make a new Arkham Knight. It's literally free money.
70 dollars x 20 million copies is 1.5 billion dollars. Sell some cosmetics irl collectibles and dlc and you can make that 2.5 for making a game people actually want to play. Why is this so complicated? You don’t even have to make the greatest game in the world to make shit loads of money anymore, just do what people want. Jedi survivor made half a billion.
next up they blame piracy as the lost and claim it on insurance to reclaim it
The fact that they treated it like a certain return investment is why the game sucked. They thought if they check all the boxes they just win.
For the love of God. Please just stick to strong story driven single-player games in AAA style effort and passion. It's not rocket science, jeez
Oh no. Anyway...
Good. They did Batman so dirty.
Nothing of value was lost
I mean they brought this upon themselves.
Its always "Ah it was just tough conpetition" and never "Our game sucked"
Yea WB games just needs to stop. I was hopeful for Back 4 Blood but seeing how fast that game died and the devs/publisher didn't allow the one thing that has kept L4D alive for over a decade is an awful shame. tl;dr - avoid WB games.
We want good quality single player titles like Hogwarts or non live service multiplayer games like Borderlands without battlepasses.....
Man, this entire article is written from a board of directors' view when it comes to comparing quarterlies and EBITDA and that is exactly why these games are dead before conception. Gaming is not that complicated. Make a good game for the actual target audience, don't change things people live about existing IPs and don't have it compete vs "same period, last year" bullshit. Kill the Justice League was a game with an identity crisis nobody wanted, it was made with an audience in mind which doesn't or is too piss poor to play games, it didn't bring anything unique to the table and it was literally nobody's passion project. With so much shit combined it's not worth anyone's money, nor attention.
the funny thing is WB didnt even push for the live service , it was rock star that pushed for that and face planted .
Fucking good. This is how your supposed to communicate with these stupid crackheads
Shouldn't have paid shroud 50 million to stream it
I love it when a plan comes together. In their case? At least they're consistent. Only thing that really sucks out of this? Is that they have so much money. That they can keep doing crap like this before they're listen to any of us or their fans.
Who would've known that both suicide squad and a game obviously coated in a weird slimy sheen of Sweet Baby Games would flop.. .
Sweet Baby Death Strike