Industry - Bloomberg
On May 9, during an earnings call, Warner Bros. revealed that it was taking a $200 million
loss on Suicide
Squad — making it one of the gaming
world's worst blunders.
One of the biggest issues, said people familiar, was that the battles, levels and bosses in a live-service game needed to be designed so players could tackle them over and over again, while Rocksteady was accustomed to telling stories that were only experienced once. Hampered by bloated code, the team struggled to find ways to make these activities feel less tedious
and repetitive.
Many of the studio's employees are now helping to develop a new “director's cut” version of Hogwarts
Legacy. At the same time, according to people familiar, the studio leaders are looking
to pitch
a new single-player game, which would
return
Rocksteady to its roots.
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One can only imagine how much more money they would make with a dedicated single player game. Probably infinitely more since the game would actually make a profit. (and also would still most likely be bad, but the studio had enough good will to cover for that, not so much for the live service label).
Big studios' dedication to chasing the theoretical Live Service infinite money at the detriment of their actual profits is really remarkable.
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I thought it was because g*mers dgaf about super hero games, especially suicide squad.
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It was certainly a factor, but I wager the live service aspect and how bad and generic (gamplay wise) it looked were more important.
If Rocksteady made a Superman singleplayer game I would be surprised if it wasn't a success.
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You'd have to invent an entirely new gameplay style for a Superman game, though. The Arkham style that so many games mimic doesn't really work with a character who can fly across a city in seconds and punch through walls.
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People couldn't get enough of Batman, that's probably why Warner Bros thought Rocksteady could pull this off in the first place, because of Arkham Asylum. Even a plot about "we're gonna kill Batman" might have worked, but not as "just as part of taking on all the JL and you'll only see him for about ten minutes and most of the game is about this third-string bunch of loser villains". Joker, even if I hate what has been done with modern Joker, is iconic. Harley is just his side-kick/whiny girlfriend.
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I think Joker is too overused. They really need to let him rest for a while.
Harley on the other hand needs to buried alive, they really want her to be The Big Thing, and she is just more and more annoying every time.
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Definitely. Over used, and by trying to make her an independent supervillain, they just Mary Sue her (she can do all this cool stuff, guys!) I don't know what they did to Margot Robbie in the Suicide Squad movie, but they made her look way too old to be running around in torn fishnets, booty shorts and pig tails. She didn't look sexy, she looked mutton dressed as lamb.
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They should just go all in on Bane so we get more plane scenes
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Studio was dumb and greedy trying to make a franchise out of the Suicide Squad movie in a genre they had no idea about, Rocksteady was dumb for taking on something it had no experience with, end result was what anyone could have forecast.
As a single player one-time game, it probably would have been okay, but I don't think there's enough interest in the Suicide Squad characters to let them stand on their own. Playing them singly or as a bunch against the Justice League? Sure. Playing Captain Kangaroo (or whatever his name is, I honestly can't remember, the boomerang guy) as a stand-alone character in a series? No way.
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