Publisher Warner Bros. Discovery announced that free-to-play brawler MultiVersus (developed by Player First, which it recently acquired) has significantly underperformed, another $100 million hit to gaming revenue in 2024. Add to that the $200 million Harley and the rest of the Suicide Squad made off with, and it's been a tough year for the firm. With impeccable timing, there's an update today, with Teen Titan's Raven being added to the game.
In a financial call (thanks, IGN), CEO David Zaslav relayed the unhappy numbers and said on the subject: "... we recognise [the games business] is substantially underperforming its potential right now." CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels added further clarity: "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."
Wiedenfels is referencing the $200 million that Suicide Squad made off with, which, if not for Concord, might have been the biggest gaming bungle of the year. Released in February, the servers are still inexplicably live, with a third season of content recently released to the chirruping of crickets. Around 1,500 people are playing MultiVersus on Steam at the time of this writing, hitting a three-month high of 5,000 back in September; that doesn't seem nearly enough to sustain the investment.