Warner Bros. Wants To Shift Away From "Volatile" one-and-done AAA Console Games, Lean Into Free-To-Play And Mobile

[the-pi-guy]

Warner Bros. Wants To Shift Away From "Volatile" AAA Console Games, Lean Into Free-To-Play And Mobile https://t.co/ubhyHfzXRb pic.twitter.com/ciT0dMAAkz

— GameSpot (@GameSpot) March 5, 2024

“Our single player game in 2022 and our single player game in 2023 did huge business. Our live service projects over the last few years did not. So we’ve decided…. More live service projects.”

— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) March 5, 2024

[Dr. Pezus]

Bahaha. Hogwarts Legacy was massive and Suicide squad was a gigantic flop. better double down on the flops

[Horizon]

Gigantic facepalm

[kitler53]

i feel like publishers still don't get it.

i CANNOT play more than 1 live-service game at a time.   each one is too big of a time sink.   they are huge when they are huge but they are huge flops when they are huge flops.  i avoid these games that require "community" to be played like it's the plague when the pre-release hype isn't big.   it's a big risk as a player to spend money on a game that will be unplayable because it lacks a community or (worse yet) the publisher pulled the plug on the servers.

i can play though at least multiple "one and done" games in a year.   they can still be huge when they are huge but even the "flops" do well enough to not loose such massive amounts of money.   even if no one else wants to play it i can enjoy a game like dragon's dogma 2 so my purchase decision doesn't involve any risk.


regardless of the business model,... any game where the "Business model" feels like it was the core design principle of the game development is a game that sucks to play.   you have to start by building a good game first and figuring out how to monetize it latter.   this is where helldivers did soo well.   the $40 up front made it so the gameplay didn't grind to promote mtx.   that's a huge difference to making a game that is actually fun to play.  $40 up front with mtx that feel very subtle is a great compromise imo.  

[nnodley]

legacy was literally the BEST SELLING game of 2023. WTF

[Legend]

I knew they'd learn the wrong lessons from Suicide Squad, but I never could have imagined something like this.

The full article is less inept sounding, but I can't think of any other game company that made a statement that was this inept sounding.

[Horizon]

legacy was literally the BEST SELLING game of 2023. WTF

It will be over 30 million by the end of this year is my guess too. The game has extremely strong legs.

[the-pi-guy]

I knew they'd learn the wrong lessons from Suicide Squad, but I never could have imagined something like this.

The full article is less inept sounding, but I can't think of any other game company that made a statement that was this inept sounding.

My thread is misleading.

The tweet isn't an actual statement, just a funny take on WB's position.

[Legend]

My thread is misleading.

The tweet isn't an actual statement, just a funny take on WB's position.

Yeah I made sure to read what they actually said, but what they actually said isn't much better.

[kitler53]

It will be over 30 million by the end of this year is my guess too. The game has extremely strong legs.

yeah, but with the licensing fees it barely broke even....

[kitler53]

as relevant a thread as any...

*taps mic* testing, testing, 1, 2, 3

— MultiVersus (@multiversus) March 5, 2024

multiversus appears to be coming back.   I am excited to see it but I fear I may be the only one.   I put $20 into the game,.. my currency better still be there along with my character unlocks. 

[Legend]

I assumed the game had released and was then shut down, but it was just an open beta I guess. Hopefully this version stays alive.

[kitler53]

I assumed the game had released and was then shut down, but it was just an open beta I guess. Hopefully this version stays alive.

Reports vary but….

They had some issues with hit detection.  There were some really basic things you would think they had like ranking that was apparently really hard to implement.   Servers could be unstable sometimes.  the monetization sucked as they had a battle pass that was like half toast and a lot of the content would unlock for characters you may not have access to. 

…then the killer,.. they had a lot of content drop almost immediately and then suddenly nothing but really lazy skins that were just color pallet swaps.  It was said they were going to introduce the lord of the rings as a big content drop but then embracer bought up the rights and the content had to be scrapped. 


Long story short,.. all of a sudden they pulled the game and claimed to have learned soo much form the "beta" and they'd be back at the EoY with the full game.   I honestly didn't think it would ever return especially after EoY came and when with nothing.  

I will be happy if it does.  It was good overall.  Mostly they need to figure out the business stategy.   No one is going to buy battle passes the way they structured them.  They should do character specific "warbonds" imo.  I'd probably buy shame if the shame was at least for a character i play.