Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) games division, Warner Bros. Games, is once again in the red, and of course they’re pointing the finger at Rocksteady’s failed live service title.

According to WBD’s quarterly earnings report, the video game division was down 41% year-over-year in the April-June quarter, thanks to the poor performance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. But all of its major segments were down, including theatrical and television. In addition to Suicide Squad, WBD also mentioned Hogwarts Legacy: The Harry Potter Universe was a big draw for WBD last year, but it ran out of steam this year, but the truth is that the decline was expected, but not by THAT MUCH.

Back in May, WBD CEO David Zaslav said that Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League had already cost the company $200 million. According to Bloomberg, many Rocksteady developers are working on a new version of Hogwarts Legacy, and after the live service fiasco, the studio is now trying to get a new single-player title accepted by Warner Bros. Games, but Warner is stubbornly sticking to the live service model.

A new Harry Potter game is coming soon, as Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, which has been in development for several years at Los Angeles-based Unbroken Studios (which worked on the console version of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League), will launch on September 3 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

What is the moral of the story? The short answer is that Warner is pushing the live service model too hard, but we have seen successful games do it (Helldivers 2). Maybe we should give developers a little more leeway and not just meet the publisher’s expectations.

Source: VGC