Another quarter, another quarterly report full of complaints from Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), which has now openly stated that its video game division is “significantly underperforming”!

This time, instead of pointing the finger at Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (which has been the scapegoat for WBD so far…), the publisher’s attention has now turned to another title. According to the company, MultiVersus is not performing as well as expected, and as a result, the publisher has once again suffered a loss of over $100 million! According to David Zaslav, CEO of WBD, their strategy has been slightly adjusted and they will focus on four strong and profitable franchises that have a loyal fan base worldwide: Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones and DC (especially Batman) will be their four “pillars”.

For this reason, WBD has committed to focusing development on these four main franchises with their already successful studios in order to increase their success rate. So they’re going to focus more on what’s worked for them so far, which begs the question of when they’ll stop with MultiVerse, because if it’s not going so well, it’s only a matter of time before the Super Smash Bros. clone gets Game Over…

“Results were impacted by games, for which we took another $100+ million impairment charge this quarter due to underperforming releases – primarily MultiVersus – bringing the total year-to-date impairment charge in our games business to over $300 million, the primary driver of this year’s studio profit decline. In the fourth quarter, we expect games to be flat to slightly better year-over-year, as the launch of Hogwarts Legacy on the Switch platform in November will be offset by lower costs. But even in an industry of hits and misses, we have to acknowledge that our studio businesses need to deliver more consistently. This applies to our games business, which we recognize is currently underperforming significantly,” Zaslav said.

Source: Gamesindustry, VGC