One of the biggest struggles in the gaming industry currently is the belief from certain higher-ups in major developers and publishers that the “live-service gaming model” is the best way to push not the gaming industry forward, but the company’s profits forward. This is why we’ve had so many flops and failures in the live-service market over the course of a decade pretty much. Companies keep trying to make them, thinking, “This will make us loads of money!” Then, it doesn’t happen. Today, we learned that Multiversus is the latest live-service title to enter the “didn’t meet expectations” market, and it shouldn’t be that surprising that this happened.
Granted, at the beginning of its life, when it was “in beta,” it was making money via starter packs and such. Thus, even with its free-to-play stylings, there was potential for profit. However, it then went dark for many months, and by the time it came back, it just wasn’t worth it to many, and according to Warner Bros head David Zaslav, as noted byIGN, the game cost the company $100 million in revenue, and they’ve had to do another “writedown” as a result.
Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels noted this specifically in the financial call the two were on:
“We took another $100 million plus impairment due to the underperforming releases, primarily MultiVersus this quarter, bringing total writedown year-to-date to over $300 million in our games business, a key factor in this year’s studio profit decline.”
If you’re wondering where that other $200 million is in that writedown, you might recall another live-service title via Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. This was the first live-service entry in that Batman-focused franchise, and it bombed horribly.
When you add that to a certain Quidditch game that also didn’t do anything meaningful for Warner Bros, you see not one, not two, but THREE big live-service titles that featured known IPs not doing what the developer and publisher thought they would do. We’re shocked, shocked! Okay, not that shocked.
If you want proof that the non-microtransaction style is the best way to go, you need only look at Nintendo. During its financial briefing recently, it noted that Super Smash Bros Ultimate sold over 35 million copies. It was a complete game at launch, had two DLC packs of fighters, and was legendary and is the best-selling fighting game of all time. Oh, and that’s just one of the over 70+ million sellers that Nintendo has had on Switch. Why? Because they make quality games and don’t try to nickel and dime players.
