Warner Bros. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:will focus on live-service games to make the most “post-purchase profit” from its billion-dollar IP, CEO David Zaslav explained on an earnings call last week. “Our focus is on transforming our biggest franchises,” he , “from largely consol🀅e and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always-on gameplay through live services, multiplatform and free-to-play extensions, with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platfor𒊎ms.”
Zaslav specifically listed Game of Thro༒nes, Harry Potter, Batman, and Mortal Kombat in the call, which goes some way to explaining the release of Mortal Kombat: Onslaught last month. The free-to-play RPG seems to be indicative of what Warner Bros. wants to do going forwards: create spin-off games from huge, well-known properties that it owns to try to lure a couple of whales in each time to keep the business afloat.
Tip: Warner Bros. obviously didn’t read our feature about 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the ♏death of live-🍌service as we know it
Mortal Kombat: Onslaught has a user score of just 3.8 on Metacritic, which isn’t the most accurate measurement of a game’s worth, but tends to be a decent straw poll of public consensus. Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is Warner Bros.’ first triple-A attempt at a live-service title. The DC title has been delayed twice now, for a total of over two years, and fans didn’t react well to a gameplay showcase Warner Bros. released in March thanks to the cosmetic battle passes that have been a mainstay in live-service titles since Fortnite exploded in popularity. Now it looks like Wonder Woman 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:might be headed in the same direction.
Live-service games and battle royales have waned in popularity in recent years. Committed fans are still playing the likes of Fortnite and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Apex Legends in their droves, but new titles trying to break into the marke𝐆t need to be pretty special if they want to pull players away from their preferred live-service ecosystem.
Wa🎶rner Bros. has pivoted to live-service far too late, and is left hoping for one to ꧟save its skin. Niantic’s hit was the perfect storm, much like Fortnite captured the controllers of millions when it revolutionised shooters with its battle royale mode, but you can’t rely on these moments of magic for instant returns.
This year hasn’t been good for the games industry. Countless live-service titles have been delisted and servers shut💧 down, and it seems like there have been . Corporate bosses seem to be demanding unreasonable profits and setting unreasonable expectations, and I worry the same fate will befall Warner Bros. if it chases out-of-fashion trends.
Note: If I had♉ a penny for each time Warner Bros. CEꦐO David Zaslav has shelved completed movies, presumably for tax reasons, I’d have two pence. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened to both and
Warner Bros. creates great games. The Nemesis System in Shadow of Mordor is the best new RPG mechanic of the 2010s, and it’s set to be utilised in Wonder Woman, too. Even that, however, was pounced upon by executives, and Warner Bros. copyrighted the mechanic so no other games could use the revolutionary system. Despite corporate interference, this is the sort of thing that developers should be working on, expressing their creativity through innovative ideas that push games forwards, instead of chasing dead trends in search of a mythica⛎l pot of gold.
Warner Bros. is pivoting to a genre that players have long since fallen out of love with, years after it was in vogue. Players are willing to forgive all of Shadows of Mordor’s heinous crimes against Tolkien because it’s so d*rn fun to play, but the CEO sees it as a failure because nobody’s still buying it 𝓀nine years after release. I’m sick of huge companies treating this industry like it’s about extracting the most value possible, I’m sick of them valuing profits over people, and I’m sick of them stifling creativity to try to chase a quick buck. I hope, for the devs’ sake, that they can make the art👍 they want to create in this profit-first environment that Warner Bros. doesn’t fully understand.
