Warner Bros. Discovery hasn’t been having the easiest year on all of its fronts, with its latest earnings report highlighting all the changes across the different media types in the latest quarter. According to numbers highlighted from the earnings report by Bounding Into Comics, the company’s overall revenues for the same time period last year showed a decrease of 4%, with TV revenue decreasing by 27%, Theatrical revenue increasing by 19%, and the real struggle being the 41% decrease in video game revenue. The last one easily accounts for a majority of the overall decrease, being a 14% larger decrease than the TV revenues. Most of this decrease is being attributed to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
The game was released in January of this year and has already become infamous. It has a 60 on Metacritic, indicating mixed critic’s reviews, but an average user score of 3.5 of 10, suggesting unfavorable experiences. The game is a spin-off of the Batman: Arkham series and true to the title has Suicide Squad members Harley Quinn, Capiain Boomerang, Deadshot, and Kingshark attempting to defeat mind controlled Justice League members. An alternate universe version of the Joker and Mrs. Freeze were released as DLC characters after launch. Apparently Deadshot’s daughter will be added to the game next. The game has come under fire for multiple points, but the biggest buzz words are repetitive gameplay, which in an action game is the kiss of death.
In the earnings report JB Perrette, the CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games for Warner Bros. Discovery commented on Suicide Squad’s shortcomings. Despite coming from a profitable IP, Perrette recognizes that “you still need a great game. And the reality is [they’ve] had the unfortunate, in the short period of 12 months, [they] went from having the record year that [they] had in 2023 with Hogwarts Legacy, to unfortunately having the opposite side of that spectrum with Suicide Squad.” Perrette is echoing the sentiments that fans have been touting about sequels and remakes for the past few years, no game can truly succeed by coasting on past success.
While Batman: Arkham and DC fans in general might have been disappointed with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s performance, they have something exciting to look forward to with the upcoming Batman: Arkham Shadow, set to come out during Fall this year.