Suicide Squad’s failure reportedly led to mass layoffs at Rocksteady

Warner Bros. Games’ last major venture was the game Suicide Squada cooperative shooter that ended up not achieving the expected success in the market. Well, apparently, the commercial failure of the game ended up generating a wave of layoffs at Rockstead Studios.

This is stated by the sources of Eurogamerwho spoke to the outlet recently. According to the information, several employees were laid off from the studio last month, with the quality control department having its workforce reduced by more than half — previously there were 33 employees in the sector, now there are only 15. Other areas of the company were also affected.

The sources told the Eurogamer that the reason for the layoffs is directly linked to the disastrous launch of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The game’s poor reception by critics, as well as “weak sales” ended up resulting in the supposed “restructuring” of Rocksteady.

In addition, most of the layoffs at the studio were junior employees, those who had not been working there for very long. However, some veterans were also affected — some of them with more than five years of service, in fact.

Suicide Squad game cost WB Games $200 million in losses

During an earnings call last month, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and global president of streaming and gaming JB Perrette were asked about the “uneven performance” of the company’s gaming business.

In its fiscal report, Warner Bros. reported a 41% drop in its gaming revenue year-over-year, with the game’s Suicide Squad causing a loss of around US$200 million for the company with its “poor performance” in the market.

With 22 million units sold, Hogwarts Legacy was the best-selling game of 2023.Fonte:  WB Games

It’s a really notable drop in revenue, considering that in the same period last year WB Games was celebrating the rather concise numbers of Hogwarts Legacy — which was the best-selling game of 2023.

The wizarding RPG has become a real hit among fans, selling over 22 million copies — despite the controversies it has been involved in. The numbers are so impressive that they even surpassed the 20 million units sold by Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomone of the most acclaimed titles of 2023.

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