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

ReBurn

Gold Member
I mean - at least the guy is honest. What he is saying: “Unless we have a huge IP like HP we have completely no idea what makes a AAA game successful. We are clueless so we are just going to limit the risk to maximum.”
Agree. The "just make good games and they will sell" platitudes are completely reductive. A game can be good and still not be what people want. It's why so many companies are just following the mobile and service money. It's less risky. AAA has been creatively bankrupt for years.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Sylvester Stallone Facepalm GIF


Those poor devs under that management. FFS, it’s so fucking simple to give basic needs to gamers.
 

MDSLKTR

Member
But don’t you want another Batman game dude? I’ve completely given up on ever getting a single player AAA Superman game in my lifetime (and I’m 25) but I’m still holding out hope we can get some more AAA SP Batman games.

WB Montreal next game is from a “popular established franchise”. I can only imagine they’re doing another Arkham. And if they’re not rocksteady will almost assuredly be tasked with that IF theyre not shutdown.
Its over man. Our only hope is when Batman goes public domain in 2035, or if WB goes under before that.
 
Why do some of these companies (like WB) not cater to the existing audience of Gen X , millenials who are flush with cash to buy games, and instead target younger gen Z and alphas who don't have money, and don't buy games?
Why.....?
I get it they see fortnite, but thats unusal. I get it gen z (sorry for gen z's that don't fit this mold), like to watch gaming instead of playing or use gaming as the new hanging out with friends phase of life.... but they aren't the only people who buy games.

I won't shift over to that shit, I just won't buy new western releases and play my backlog. Buy up used old games. Shit I just bought up 6 guitar hero games and guitar for the ps2 and having a blast with it. Got Windwaker, twilight princess, other m, little kings story, skyward sword, prime 3, Muramasa, trauma center, galaxy 2 for my wife's wii and having a blast. Got a Series X and bought a ton of old 360 and og xb games....

The last few new gen games i got were Hogwarts legacy, Robocop, Dead space remake, and super mario rpg.
Oh and just bought Shiren the wanderer 6 on swich. Will get ff7 rebirth eventually after i go back to the remake part 1. Dragon Dogma2 is next.

All single player games, Id happily buy a new batman game. I bought the collection on ps3, ps4/5, steam, and switch, as I like them on different places and the prices were right.

Make compelling single player games and I and many others will buy. The market for it is yearning. High demand and low supply == make it and make bank. Not hard economics.
 

Braag

Member
RIP

Any talented devs left there should consider jumping ship to a studio that actually want to make good games rather than soulless trash that is made only to sell as much MTX to idiots as possible.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Man must be tough being wrong all the time

Whats your definition of success? All those Batman games sold at least 6 mil copies each

6 million sales was the brick wall.

The train headed for that brick wall was the rising budgets for each installment.

They needed to jump off before the crash.
 
Why do some of these companies (like WB) not cater to the existing audience of Gen X , millenials who are flush with cash to buy games, and instead target younger gen Z and alphas who don't have money, and don't buy games?
Why.....?
I get it they see fortnite, but thats unusal. I get it gen z (sorry for gen z's that don't fit this mold), like to watch gaming instead of playing or use gaming as the new hanging out with friends phase of life.... but they aren't the only people who buy games.

I won't shift over to that shit, I just won't buy new western releases and play my backlog. Buy up used old games. Shit I just bought up 6 guitar hero games and guitar for the ps2 and having a blast with it. Got Windwaker, twilight princess, other m, little kings story, skyward sword, prime 3, Muramasa, trauma center, galaxy 2 for my wife's wii and having a blast. Got a Series X and bought a ton of old 360 and og xb games....

The last few new gen games i got were Hogwarts legacy, Robocop, Dead space remake, and super mario rpg.
Oh and just bought Shiren the wanderer 6 on swich. Will get ff7 rebirth eventually after i go back to the remake part 1. Dragon Dogma2 is next.

All single player games, Id happily buy a new batman game. I bought the collection on ps3, ps4/5, steam, and switch, as I like them on different places and the prices were right.

Make compelling single player games and I and many others will buy. The market for it is yearning. High demand and low supply == make it and make bank. Not hard economics.
Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite are games dominated by gamers in the 10- to 18-year-old age range. Companies don't care that this demographic doesn't work or have money, the parents' money is just as valuable.
 

tkscz

Member
The execs at WB have shown that they have no understanding of what people want outside of average TV audiences as they have failed at every other medium there is.

EVERY other publisher was leaving GaaS when WB's CEO claimed that GaaS was the way to go. Like we get it, only game you saw was Fortnite while ignoring all the ones that came before and failed hard, while ignoring your own successes because you weren't around when they happened.
 

ProtoByte

Member
While I don't fully agree with everything Men_in_Boxes Men_in_Boxes is saying, the fact is that the exec or senior manager that realizes that their days in their position are numbered when talking to investors in these situations, they're going to think like this.

As long as fucking Fortnite exists, there won't be a publisher that doesn't look at it and wish they could have a piece of that pie.

F2P has completely ruined incentive structures in game development.
 
If every Batman game sold around 6.5 million copies, why would the next one sell 22 million copies?

Because they would make it more ambitious by using the Hogwarts formula?

A badass Wayne manor you could build up, store vehicles/gasgets, similar to how fleshed out Hogwarts academy was

Then surround it with an open Gotham

It would easily sell 15M of the quality was there
 

Pidull

Member
Another interesting take.

Young gamers have no problem with GaaS. It's where the industry is going for the future. It would be foolish for them not to explore that avenue. And if that avenue still fails, yeah, you might have to re-evaluate monetization going forward. If you're unable to monetize on a constant basis and you're unable to consistently sell enough units, then you have to reduce costs.
Younger gamers don't mind live service games, sure, but younger generations also don't give a damn about franchises nearly as much as older gamers, which is the bread and butter of WB games.

If you want to be big, you need to target the biggest generation still, and that's millennials. We have become very particular about our tastes and also very judicious when it comes to game quality. You can't get away with crap any more.

That does raise the question of "what's next" for gaming companies though, because Millennials are not far from entering the declining stages of life.
 

ProtoByte

Member
If every Batman game sold around 6.5 million copies, why would the next one sell 22 million copies?
Good question.

For reference, most Harry Potter and Spider-Man console games didn't sell in the 15-20+ million range until they did. And there's a number of reasons for this.

1. There was more competition for that specific kind of game back then.
2. Hogwarts Legacy and Spider-Man 2018 are the closest we've gotten to fully well-rounded games of the IP. They're sufficiently budgeted and creatively apt enough in comparison to literally everything else before them.

Most of the half decent Harry Potter games were either movie tie-ins or Lego games that still resembled and retread the movies, for example.

The gap is smaller for Batman, I would argue that Rocksteady's version, while groundbreaking at the time, is not actually anywhere close to the maximum potential of Batman as a game.

The lack of characterisation beyond the stereotype for Batman himself, no actual Bruce Wayne presence, each story taking place over one night, Knight's story just being plain bad, and poorly implemented supporting cast members throughout and rote gameplay systems actually put a hard cap on sales potential. Some people here will not like me saying heresy at the alter of Arkham, but there has to he some explanation to the fact that you've pointed out. Even "Arkham", being used as the series moniker might be limiting.

You want a Batman game that will sell 20 million, you need to elevate beyond what Arkham and Insomniac's Spider-Man have done. Make it Reverse GTA. The ultimate Crime-Fighting sim, with a high quality cinematic story that rounds out a high-effort interpretation of Batman, Bruce Wayne, his supporting cast and their place in the wider DC universe.

Systemic Gotham that uses an artstyle that doesn't just make it look like Chicago-York or a barely coherent amalgam of city centers like Knigh had it, where civillains, police, criminals and villains interact freely. If it hit all the right markers, forget 20 million, you're looking at 25+ at minimum.

Of course, this requires a lot more time and effort than what executives think live services do, and the revenue potential is not the same as that of Fortnite or Minecraft or Apex Legends or whatever.
 

Embearded

Member
WB can do whatever the hell they want to do, just keep Hogwarts Legacy alive and let it evolve without MTX and GaaS bullshit.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
Batman Facepalm GIF by WE tv


How's Multiversus working for you WB?

They released Hogwarts Legacy with a lot of success (mostly due to the IP). It was single player and no MTX. Mobile gaming deserves more than being a F2P wasteland. It basically tells me the publishers just want to extract as much money as possible than make anything of quality. WB doesn't seem to have an identity and seems to just chase trends trying to catch lightning in a bottle. I think publishers need to stop being charity cases by offering trash to consumers and expecting them to pay more for it. Quality games matter in the long run. Don't string people along with empty promises (roadmaps) and ever-changing strategies that tell me the publisher is just throwing shit at a wall hoping something sticks.
 

Dzab

Member
Batman Facepalm GIF by WE tv


How's Multiversus working for you WB?

They released Hogwarts Legacy with a lot of success (mostly due to the IP). It was single player and no MTX. Mobile gaming deserves more than being a F2P wasteland. It basically tells me the publishers just want to extract as much money as possible than make anything of quality. WB doesn't seem to have an identity and seems to just chase trends trying to catch lightning in a bottle. I think publishers need to stop being charity cases by offering trash to consumers and expecting them to pay more for it. Quality games matter in the long run. Don't string people along with empty promises (roadmaps) and ever-changing strategies that tell me the publisher is just throwing shit at a wall hoping something sticks.
Funny you say this, the MultiVersus account just tweeted so I'm assuming it's coming back
 

FeralEcho

Member
If every Batman game sold around 6.5 million copies, why would the next one sell 22 million copies?
Imagine if Insomniac thought the same thing about Spiderman when they got the license 😂

Since Spiderman games before Insomniac sold like aged milk even though they were on 5 platforms and here I'll provide some numbers for you too since you're so fond of numbers:

The Amazing Spiderman 2 for PS4 which was the last big Spiderman release before Marvel's Spiderman by Insomniac did a measly 570k units sold TOTAL compared to the 22,685 million units shipped that the PS4 version of Marvel's Spiderman by Insomniac did as per VGchartz numbers.

matt damon apples GIF


So yes given enough time in the oven,a great developer and direction and good quality marketing,any big IP,including Batman can sell those numbers,we even have Harry Potter from the same publisher recently proving that.

Making a great game and marketing it properly can sell gangbusters...who woulda thunk?
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Making a great game and marketing it properly can sell gangbusters...who woulda thunk?
This statement is too vague to have any meaning.

It's also not how strategic decisions are made. There are OBVIOUSLY multiple avenues for success in the games industry.

You highlighting one specific avenue for success, extolling all its virtues without any of its drawbacks, is just illogical. It doesn't advance the discussion.

These companies are persuing Live Service because it's a newer, less explored, less competitive market with exponentially more upside.

These companies don't care about games like we do. They don't think like "I prefer God of War Ragnarok. That's true art. Therefore make more of that." That's just childish emotion filled thinking. CEOs get paid the bug bucks because they DON'T think like that.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Like, this is my list of installed games on Steam:
Show me your "top games of the year" threads on NeoGAF. Installed games does not prove your preference.
You can't pick the very few successful GAAS to prove your point, otherwise I will list all the failed GAAS and you will see that there are far more failures than successes. Stop your bullshit.
That's a game no one wants to play. There are far more unsuccessful SP games than successful ones too. We'd be wasting our time.
Also Lethal Company? In this conversation about big companies like WB? Really? Reaaaaaaaaaaaally? Do you see how dishonest you are?
You don't think a company like WB is studying the market, looking at a game like Lethal Company, and learning from it? Come on now...
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
lol...

Easily the most competitive and oversaturated market on consoles
That's the narrative but the Live Service market has grown faster over the last 10 years than any other segment of the core gaming market.

Narratives are built to be clicked on, not to be factual.
 
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Dorfdad

Gold Member
This translates into we don’t have anybody that knows what the hell we are doing and we have incompetent people making decisions based on our great franchises so instead of doing the right thing and then giving the gamers what they’re asking for we’re going to double down on mobile and AA titles to right our ship.

What I’d rather they do is sell those eyepiece to competent developers
 
Younger gamers don't mind live service games, sure, but younger generations also don't give a damn about franchises nearly as much as older gamers, which is the bread and butter of WB games.

If you want to be big, you need to target the biggest generation still, and that's millennials. We have become very particular about our tastes and also very judicious when it comes to game quality. You can't get away with crap any more.

That does raise the question of "what's next" for gaming companies though, because Millennials are not far from entering the declining stages of life.

That's why they try live service games based on franchises. They're trying to thread the needle across generations.

The first suicide squad movie made three quarters of a billion dollars. It came out in 2016.

On paper this game probably made sense to a lot of people, though most of us never asked for it.

They released another suicide squad movie in 2021 and it didn't do so hot. That's when they probably realized they were in a lot of trouble. That the franchise didn't have the drawing power they thought it did.

You can tell that they didn't have a lot of data when they started making this game. For example there is no Peacemaker character.

The game was probably in development since 2015/2016 with a release planned for 2020 or 2021 at the latest. They initially announced the game in 2020, so the revision here must be significant. I wonder when it was actually pivoted to GaaS.

I think when it comes to millennials, companies need to realize that in large part they can't just make anything and have it sell. That's why so many things are getting canceled and why companies don't want to drop serious money on licensing. Companies need to focus on building their own IP and that if you're going to build a AAA game, it better be top quality otherwise don't bother with AAA.


Historically we never really saw many AAA licensed games. GoldenEye was kind of an outlier back in the N64 days. The whole gist of licensed games was to put out a rushed product in line with a movie release and just hope for as many units sold as possible, but the games were largely trash.

Baldur's Gate and Elden Ring need to be the examples that the industry follows when it comes to AAA game development rather than following Ubi Soft's example.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I mean they're right that console gaming has become highly volatile. It's become completely unpredictable and some negative or positive word of mouth completely snowballs nowadays in this industry.

How is this different from literally ANY other medium?!

Holy shit. LMAO.

They don’t wanna invest in AAA SP traditional model even after 24 million sales.

Goes on to show how hard it must be, especially when you are not platform holder.

Making a killer GAAS game is even harder though.

Another interesting take.

Young gamers have no problem with GaaS. It's where the industry is going for the future. It would be foolish for them not to explore that avenue. And if that avenue still fails, yeah, you might have to re-evaluate monetization going forward. If you're unable to monetize on a constant basis and you're unable to consistently sell enough units, then you have to reduce costs.

They just released two games. One is a traditional SP game, the other is a GAAS game. One succeeded to the heavens and the other FLOPPED all the way to hell. So why they choosing hell?
 
What a dumbass move. Hogwarts Legacy created history sales and was sooo much profitable to them and yet they can't see. This change will ruin them further.
 

FeralEcho

Member
These companies are persuing Live Service because it's a newer, less explored, less competitive market with exponentially more upside.
Newer? Nope it's been done to death and consumers are starting to show hard pushback against it as evidenced with Suicide Squad,Gotham Knights,Avengers,Skull and Bones etc. There's been so much pushback that Sony started rethinking their live service commitment with the cancelation of Factions and the Firesprite gaas game.

Less explored? We've had so many variations of this shit that basically they started throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks,from battle royale,to arena shooters,superhero games,pirate games,no one knows wtf they are doing.

They just want their own Fortnite not realizing that no one is gonna play another Fortnite while they still play the actual Fortnite,no one is gonna play another Sea of Thieves as long as there is still the actual Sea of Thieves,etc....

And less competitive market? 😂 Just read what I just wrote,this is the most oversaturated market with the less growth possible....They are all chasing Fortnite not realizing that while there is still a Fortnite players won't have time to dedicate to a new thing unless it's for a couple hours before they abandon it and go back to Fortnite...

This is what all these CEOs don't understand,people don't have enough hours in a day to give to another Fortnite,Destiny,Sea of Thieves,Warzone or whatever thing they are already invested in....

There's no Growth!!!! Its not like a singleplayer game where you can just pay money and enjoy the 20-30-40 hour experience and thats it,and with word of mouth you can get millions of sales....No,If it's free to play they want you to stick around and spend money on in store shit but they don't understand that no one has time to dedicate to another game because they already have 1000 hours in Fortnite.

How many gaas games do you play???

I would argue you can't juggle more than 3,max 4...
 
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