Right around the launch of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, publisher Warner Bros. announced that the live service title had led to disappointing results for the team, at least initially. Of course, being direct from the horse's mouth, WB was quite vague on the matter, but a new report from respected journalist Jason Schreier has gone into detail about just how much of a flop Kill the Justice League has seemingly been.
In a new report over at Bloomberg, Schreier says that development has lead to a "$200 million loss on Suicide Squad" over at WB HQ, while the report also goes on to detail accounts from employees who were "surprised when they first arrived at the offices to learn that they would be working on a multiplayer game".
Of course, much of this game's controversy stems from that multiplayer nature. Rocksteady has long been known for premium, AAA experiences like the Batman Arkham games, and this Suicide Squad title ended up being a huge departure for the team.
"One of the biggest issues, said people familiar, was that the battles, levels and bosses in a live-service game needed to be designed so players could tackle them over and over again, while Rocksteady was accustomed to telling stories that were only experienced once. Hampered by bloated code, the team struggled to find ways to make these activities feel less tedious and repetitive."
Clearly, this live service pivot never benefited Rocksteady, who were apparently led to believe that everything would come together right at the end of development - as it had with the Arkham games. In the end, the move has led to mixed results (we actually liked the game), but it hasn't worked out financially for WB.
"Multiple people who worked on the project say their growing concerns were often met with promises from management that Suicide Squad would eventually coalesce at the last minute, just as the Arkham games had. Several employees adopted the term “toxic positivity” to describe the culture of the company, which discouraged criticism."
Despite its own admission that the game didn't live up to expectations, and the findings of this report, Warner Bros. is still adamant that it wants to move away from "one and done" games. We only have the option of waiting patiently to see how than pans out for the team.