It seemed like only a matter of time before a bomb as big as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League would result in direct damage to Rocksteady. It was credited with a $200 million loss for the year, and now that has led to layoffs which appear to be ongoing.
A new report from Eurogamer says that 18 QA workers out of a 33 person team were laid off, with some further ones outside of there, including on staffer posting that they had been laid of during their paternity leave. The exact number of layoffs is unknown, and Warner Bros. has not yet responded to requests for comment, as there has been no official announcement these layoffs are happening.
Previously, there were reports that despite Suicide Squad, Rocksteady would not suffer layoffs due to WB Games being understaffed and needing assistance/development on other current and future projects. But perhaps that work was finished, or this was always the plan after a certain amount of time and a “there’s no turning this around” window as Suicide Squad continued its live plans.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was considered one of the biggest AAA failures in a generation, given its huge cost and extremely low playerbase shortly after launch. It may have just been surpassed by PlayStation’s Concord, another hugely expensive venture that debuted with under 700 players on Steam. Suicide Squad had (a terrible at the time) 13,000 concurrents. But the “live” game now currently in season 2 of content is not breaking 100 players most of the time on PC and is obviously not selling on console.
Many have wondered why Suicide Squad is continuing live development at all, but it appears there is some ongoing promise to get out at least the first year of content to players, where season 3 brings Zoe Lawton to the game and season 4 has Deathstroke. There are also heavy hints that Rocksteady’s OG Batman will be resurrected and continue to have a role in a story that is now going nowhere.
The layoffs may be expected, but they are still maddening given that it’s QA that’s suffering, when it was reportedly studio leadership that pushed for the live Suicide Game to a point where even the devs at the company were baffled by some of the choices. But as is usually the case in the industry leadership only rarely pays the price for heading in the wrong direction.
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