Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League by Rocksteady's sexual harassment team- 2022

[Sarlaccfood]

It must have had way more GaaS stuff than they were letting on in that recent State of Play if they think they can fix it in 6 months.

[moosegrinder]

You can't. It'll still be terrible because it won't know what it wants to be.

[Sarlaccfood]

Such a bone-headed publisher decision to have both this and Gotham Knights be multiplayer GaaS games.
 

Years ago they could have seen the success of single-player games like Fallen Order and the Sony 1st Party crop and pivoted to make one of their games a trad single player release, to at least hedge their bets. But they just went all-in on both releases being GaaS.

 

Insane. What the hell were they thinking? Even in the best-case scenario and Gotham Knights was a success, Suicide Squad would have come along and eaten into their own player base surely?

[Benny]

[MansizeRooster]

I smell some pretty horrific crunch time looming.

[footle]

22 minutes ago, Sarlaccfood said:

It must have had way more GaaS stuff than they were letting on in that recent State of Play if they think they can fix it in 6 months.

combination of that and the release window from hell - it’s almost like one Sony would choose for Horizon.

[Jg15]

I'm replaying Arkham Aslyum at the moment. It still stands the test of time nearly 13 years later. Why they feel the need to GAAS it up when the old Arkham formula works so well.

 

Also, Its been 8 years since Knight, what have they been doing?

[Sarlaccfood]

Yeah just FYI the Return to Arkham double pack is 7 quid in the PSN sale right now if anyone wants to remember the good times. 

[moosegrinder]

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-could-be-delayed-to-2024-its-claimed/

 

Whatever the delay it won't end well for the game at this point.

[Harsin]

16 hours ago, Sarlaccfood said:

Yeah I would have thought if it was a response to backlash it would be an “indefinite” delay and then maybe a new release date once they’ve figured out a plan, like Halo Infinite. 

They can’t delay indefinitely with shareholders to appease. This is probably the maximum time they think that they can get away with to try and salvage something. This also says to me that GaaS grind and gouging they were planning was going to be even worse for than we thought.

[JamesC]

I honestly thought they were doing a Superman game after Arkham Knight. Isn't that what was originally planned? I bet they wish they could turn back the clock and do that instead.

[Harsin]

Supposedly that was what they wanted to do but WB told them to make a Suicide Squad game instead. This was at the time the corporation thought Suicide Squad was going to be the next big thing, but then both films underperformed and the Harley Quinn movie absolutely cratered. But they were too locked in by that point. 

[Eighthours]

Even if they're removing some of the GAAS stuff the game was designed around it, so it'll probably be like one of those Apple Arcade '+' games that feels weird without all the IAP mechanics.

[PaB]

Has there ever been such a spectacular fall from grace for a darling developer? I’m struggling to think of one. I mean it’s easy to blame this on Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker leaving, but they were involved from the ground up in terms of the gestation of this title and the vast majority of its development. 
 

I mean we’ve had lots of examples of great studios closing and another rising from the ashes, or lots of people leaving and forming a new studio. But for a developer to go from basically top tier to being in all sorts of trouble is pretty rare I think. 
 

This is like a rockstar north or naughty dog level developer we are talking about. 

[Jg15]

At this point they should just cancel Sucide Squad and finally issue a remastered Arkham Origins (Yes, I know that wasn't Rocksteady but I just want it remastered!).

[thesnwmn]

It's stunning to me when this happens. They (devs and publisher) cannot have been surprised that this got absolutely shat on can they? How much coolade do you have to have drunk to think it looked good. I guess part of that is answered by them thinking that was a good way to spend 15 minutes of a presentation and the best they could do but holy shit. Just stop for one second and think. Christ, they should have been able to see this was true at least a year or two ago. It's a terrible business idea and if they couldn't then once again execs show themselves to be devoid of ideas to make good new product.

[Eighthours]

1 minute ago, thesnwmn said:

It's stunning to me when this happens. They (devs and publisher) cannot have been surprised that this got absolutely shat on can they? How much coolade do you have to have drunk to think it looked good. I guess part of that is answered by them thinking that was a good way to spend 15 minutes of a presentation and the best they could do but holy shit. Just stop for one second and think. Christ, they should have been able to see this was true at least a year or two ago. It's a terrible business idea and if they couldn't then once again execs show themselves to be devoid of ideas to make good new product.

 

Paging Jason Schreier to put the story in his next book.

[Harsin]

 

[Chindie]

RIP Rocksteady, you had a good run.

[Eighthours]

6 minutes ago, Harsin said:

 

 

If Spider-Man 2 comes out in November, surely Warners would be wise to run the hell away from anywhere around that release date.

[Chindie]

Barely 3 months out from release. Clearly feeling like it's ready to launch... 2 weeks later and it's delayed for some indefinite period of time to rescue it.

 

Grim.

 

It's not rescuable either. The problem with the thing is fundamental to what it is. You can't 'fix' it. It's a terrible use of a license, built into a game structure that was pissing people off 3 or 4 years ago, built on the foundations of the 3rd person team shooter thing that hasn't spawned a great title in... fuck, I can't even think of the last one.

 

It's destined to be a horrible thing. It needs to be binned.

[thesnwmn]

2 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Barely 3 months out from release. Clearly feeling like it's ready to launch... 2 weeks later and it's delayed for some indefinite period of time to rescue it.

 

Grim.

 

It's not rescuable either. The problem with the thing is fundamental to what it is. You can't 'fix' it. It's a terrible use of a license, built into a game structure that was pissing people off 3 or 4 years ago, built on the foundations of the 3rd person team shooter thing that hasn't spawned a great title in... fuck, I can't even think of the last one.

 

It's destined to be a horrible thing. It needs to be binned.

 

And to top it all the business model is a bust.

 

The idea of a loot/battle pass game being a good idea to launch into this market is already questionable* but to do so with a damaged property/title like this is just insane. It will sink without trace. Cheaper to sack it off than release it I think.

 

* Their pursuit by publishers is damning of their understanding of time and financial economics of their players. If you weren't on this train early enough you missed out. Tough shit. Unless you're going to offer a meaningfully different experience (see Fall Guys) you will not succeed. It doesn't matter if it's mechanically better, or prettier, or whatever. You missed out. The sunk cost and investment of your players is elsehere.

[ryodi]

What are there options. They aren't going to cancel it because too much money has been invested and I assume the tax reasons that allowed them to it with the Batgirl movie don't apply here. Trying to change the game now is a recipe to destroy the morale of Rocksteady games so they can either send it out to die or release it and try and fix the issues post launch with patches like UbiSoft has done in the past. 

[Retroguy]

The problem with GaaS games is that they aren’t a thing. The reason other ‘as a service’ items work is that there is an agreement between the customer and a the provider of what this continual service will be. There is accountability. You cannot be ‘aaS’ without that part, as you are simply not providing a guaranteed service; roadmaps do not count.

 

What GaaS really is, is early access. You buy the game with the acceptance that it is what it is at that point in time, and anything else is just bunce. The continual service part, and the atmosphere of ‘we promise x, y and z in the future’ is a total con job.

[thesnwmn]

28 minutes ago, ryodi said:

What are there options. They aren't going to cancel it because too much money has been invested and I assume the tax reasons that allowed them to it with the Batgirl movie don't apply here. Trying to change the game now is a recipe to destroy the morale of Rocksteady games so they can either send it out to die or release it and try and fix the issues post launch with patches like UbiSoft has done in the past. 

 

I'd argue that just killing it is absolutely an option. I don't think they will cancel it because they're fools but the money spent doesn't matter. Putting it out even if you never change or fix it costs money.

 

4 minutes ago, Retroguy said:

The problem with GaaS games is that they aren’t a thing. The reason other ‘as a service’ items work is that there is an agreement between the customer and a the provider of what this continual service will be. There is accountability. You cannot be ‘aaS’ without that part, as you are simply not providing a guaranteed service; roadmaps do not count.

 

What GaaS really is, is early access. You buy the game with the acceptance that it is what it is at that point in time, and anything else is just bunce. The continual service part, and the atmosphere of ‘we promise x, y and z in the future’ is a total con job.

 

I think GaaS is just a poor term for it. They're mostly not really a service or subscription. These are games funded primarily by ongoing in game and battle pass sales rather than an up front cost. What we should call that I'm not sure. But I don't think that's early access. They can be a fully complete game on release. You're just adding prettier or cooler guns and costumes for people to buy.

[Ry]

It's pretty much guaranteed that WB executives have been demanding GAAS and microtransaction bullshit. 

 

I fully expect this to be on Matt McMuscles YouTube mini documentary "What Happened?" In a couple years time. 

[Harsin]

Games as a Second Job would be a more accurate term for a lot of them.

[therearerules]

2 hours ago, PaB said:

Has there ever been such a spectacular fall from grace for a darling developer? I’m struggling to think of one. I mean it’s easy to blame this on Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker leaving, but they were involved from the ground up in terms of the gestation of this title and the vast majority of its development. 
 

I mean we’ve had lots of examples of great studios closing and another rising from the ashes, or lots of people leaving and forming a new studio. But for a developer to go from basically top tier to being in all sorts of trouble is pretty rare I think. 
 

This is like a rockstar north or naughty dog level developer we are talking about. 

Bioware releasing Anthem?

[Wiper]

Not quite the same; even as a mild apologist for Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, I can't ignore that Bioware had been seen as being in a slump even before Anthem came out; there was a gradual build up (build down?) to that game's failure.

[thesnwmn]

2 minutes ago, Wiper said:

Not quite the same; even as a mild apologist for Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, I can't ignore that Bioware had been seen as being in a slump even before Anthem came out; there was a gradual build up (build down?) to that game's failure.

 

The idiots definitely stepped on the same live wire: GaaSJ (stolen from Harsin because I like it a lot)