Warner Bros execs pine for the Hogwarts Legacy glory days as games revenue plummets 41% thanks to Suicide Squad's abysmal performance
If you're not a finance whizz like me: That's bad.
Rocksteady has made some excellent games in its time, so I honestly feel a bit bad about the lead-balloon performance of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. I probably don't feel as bad about it as Warner Bros does, though: The entertainment megacorp just released its earnings statement for Q2 2024, and the news for its games revenue isn't great.
Specifically, games revenue is down an eye-watering 41% compared to Q2 2023. The reason? Rocksteady's ill-fated baby. Downturns were "primarily driven by the weak performance of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League this year," say Warner execs, adding that the bruise is all the more tender given "the strong performance of Hogwarts Legacy in the prior year."
I imagine Warner bosses comparing Suicide Squad to its Potterverse golden child twists the knife a bit for the folks at Rocksteady, but the news isn't really a surprise. We learnt a couple of months ago that Suicide Squad lost Warner a whopping $200 million after the game spent the better part of a decade in development. That's $25 million more than the 2016 movie cost to make. Given that, perhaps a 41% drop isn't all that bad. You know, relatively.
It's one more bullet point on the list of reasons I reckon that Suicide Squad might not be long for this world. I don't say that with any relish: Like I said, the folks at Rocksteady have made great games, and I'd be glad to see Suicide Squad miraculously turn around, building on those "flashes of greatness" our own Morgan Park highlighted in his Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League review. But the suits will only tolerate these kinds of results for so long, particularly with the game drawing in vanishingly low numbers of players.
Still, the game's second season only just hit—and the gang have completely failed to understand their assignment and begun reviving the Justice League—and Warner has already promised to conclude the game's "announced roadmap" of four seasons total. Perhaps something in the next couple of seasons will see it catch fire (in, uh, a good way) and justify Rocksteady's commitment. But I wouldn't bet money on it.