Warner Bros. Discovery has expressed its disappointment with Rocksteady’s Live Service game.

The game has been delayed several times (the last delay was last May), but was finally released on February 2 this year on PlayStation 5, Xbox consoles and Steam on PC (it will be released on the Epic Games Store on March 5). Rocksteady’s product did not deliver the critical and sales performance the publisher expected.

Gunnar Wiedenfels, chief financial officer of Warner Bros. Discovery, said during the company’s quarterly financial report on Friday that Rocksteady’s latest release, which has been less successful than the Batman: Arkham games, has been a disappointment: “We’re looking at the release of Hogwarts Legacy last February, which had most of its very positive financial impact in the first quarter. This year, Suicide Squad, one of our key 2024 video game releases, has fallen short of our expectations since its release earlier in the quarter, setting our games business up for a tough year-over-year comparison in Q1,” Wiedenfels said.

So, a year ago, Hogwarts Legacy was a good quarter for the publisher, so while there was hope for a downturn, Warner Bros. Discovery did not expect this much of a slump. Even though Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was one of the most anticipated games, the long development cycle dampened interest and the pre-release footage failed to capture the public’s attention. The live service model added fuel to the fire. No wonder the average score on Metacritic is 60 on console and 63 on PC. That’s weak on a scale of 1-100!

There were server errors at launch, so some players may have felt that Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was “completed” due to a bug. It’s scary to think that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in November that he wanted live service games of their biggest franchises…

Source: VGC