Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League’s release was “disappointing” for the company. He said this during Warner Bros. Discovery’s Q1 financial results call, noting its games revenue declined a lot compared to last year, as reported by IGN.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was likely never going to perform well for Warner Bros. Discovery’s gaming division compared to the sector’s revenue last year, which was anchored in the release of Hogwarts Legacy, the best-selling game of 2023 and the first non-Call of Duty game to take that spot in years. Still, as critics and players will tell you, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was a disappointing release from Rocksteady Studios, the team behind the Batman: Arkham series – you can read Game Informer’s Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League review here to find out why we gave it a 6 out of 10.
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After Zaslav called the game disappointing, Warner Bros. Discovery chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels added, “Starting with studios, the $400 million-plus year-over-year decline during Q1 was primarily due to the very tough [competition] we faced in games against the success of Hogwarts Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization] during the first quarter.”
That’s a lot of money lost, and given the state of the games industry this year, it’s hard not to worry about the status of Rocksteady post-Suicide Squad. With studios closing left and right, and more than 10,000 employees laid off this year in the games industry, it wouldn’t be surprising (however heartbreaking) to see Rocksteady go through job cuts. Here’s hoping they don’t.
For more about the game, listen to Game Informer’s spoiler-filled breakdown of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, and then read about the Joker’s debut as a playable character.
[Source: IGN]
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