Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav admitted that their latest major video game release in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League failed.
A scene from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2024), Rocksteady
As part of the company’s fourth quarter 2023 earnings webcast, Zaslav initially hinted that the game did not do well albeit without mentioning it.
He stated, “On the theatrical and gaming side while we did have some real misses this year, we also had some really big wins including Barbie, the number one movie globally and the most successful movie in the history of Warner Bros., and Hogwarts Legacy, the biggest game of 2023.”
However, later in the earnings webcast the company’s Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels admitted, “This year, Suicide Squad, one of our key video game releases in 2024, has fallen short of our expectations since its release earlier in the quarter, setting our games business up for a tough year-over-year comp in Q1.”
Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2024), Rocksteady
This admission is not a surprise given the game’s player base never even attained Marvel’s Avengers levels when it first released and those that did play the game quickly abandoned it based on Steam Charts statistics.
According to Steam Charts the game only reached a peak of 13,459 players and only averaged 3,406 players per day since the game was released at the end of January.
Current statistics show a 24-hour peak for the game only clocking in at 863 players.
Steam Charts data for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
To show just how abysmal those numbers are, one need only compare it to Marvel’s Avengers. According to Steam Charts, Marvel’s Avengers had a peak player base of 28,145 when it released back in 2020.
Steam Charts data for Marvel’s Avengers
Square Enix admitted in 2020 that the game was “unable to completely offset the amortization of the game’s development cost.”
In 2021, as part of the company’s Annual Report, Square Enix Group President and Representative Director Yosuke Matsuda discussed the game and declared it a “disappointing outcome.”
He said, “I would also note that Marvel’s Avengers was an ambitious title for us in that we took on the GaaS (Games as a Service) model. We overcame a variety of unexpected difficulties in the final phase of the game’s development, including needing to transition to work-from-home due to the pandemic. We were able to surmount these challenges and release the game, but it has unfortunately not proven as successful as we would have liked.”
Matsuda continued, “Nonetheless, taking on the GaaS model highlighted issues that we are likely to face in future game development efforts such as the need to select game designs that mesh with the unique attributes and tastes of our studios and development teams. While the new challenge that we tackled with this title produced a disappointing outcome, we are certain that the GaaS approach will grow in importance as gaming becomes more service oriented. How we go about creating new experiences by incorporating this trend into our game design is a key question that we will need to answer going forward.”
Kamala Khan in Marvel’s Avengers (2020), Crystal Dynamics
Needless to say it looks like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a massive failure for Warner Bros. Discovery and Rocksteady Games.
What do you make of Warner Bros. Discovery’s admission that the game did not meet expectations?
