Support NeoGAF

[Draugoth]

Free-to-play Smash Bros.-style brawler MultiVersus has significantly underperformed, publisher Warner Bros. Discovery has admitted, contributing to a further $100 million writedown for the company’s games business in 2024.

Warner Bros. Games acquired MultiVersus developer Player First Games in July just two months after the game relaunched on PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S following early access and open beta releases throughout 2022 and 2023.

"Our team is excited to join the Warner Bros. Games family, and we feel that this will be great for MultiVersus overall,” Huynh said at the time. “We are working to make the MultiVersus game experience the best it can be and having our development team integrated with the publisher is optimum for the players."

However, speaking in a recent financial call, Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav and Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said MultiVersus' failure had added another $100 million to the $200 million writedown the company's games business has suffered so far in 2024.

"... we recognise [the games business] is substantially underperforming its potential right now," Zaslav said.

SOurce

 

[Saber]

All gonna fall in the Hogwarts Legacy back to do the lifting.

 

[Generic]

Warner will quickly go back at selling skins in Fortnite.

 

[Hookshot]

Do you think Sakurai gets 100 million for constantly succeeding at it while others try and fail one after another?

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

$100M loss WTF? How much did they spend on this game?

 

[kunonabi]

Multiversus is pretty awful so I believe it. Making a smash clone aimed solely at competitive play was a terrible idea. The game just isn't any fun since the balance is whack and the best strategies are extremely overtuned and brain dead so playing online is a complete and utter toxic sweat fest every match. It just isn't any fun at a casual level and the game tries to railroad you into spending money in the most obvious and insulting ways which makes it even worse. They do give more free premium currency than I would have expected but the game is just si miserable that doing the doing the missions and events is as much as I can stomach of it and I really only do that much because Superman is in it.

 

[lughnasadh123]

Was really excited to give this a go with the character list but almost dropped it immediately due to how it played.

 

[Deerock71]

They're going to blame Hogwart's Legacy...somehow.

 

[winjer]

This thing looks like a mobile game. How did it cost 100M to make?

 

[jakinov]

$100M loss WTF? How much did they spend on this game?

They don’t necessarily loae $100M, owning the game is considered an asset for them. They put the value of the game at some value and now they are saying the game they own is worth $100M less than they originally put down. The value they pick can be more or less than the cost to make. Potentially more as they likely considered potential earning potential. At the end of day by doing this it will help with taxes. The game is still doing bad but they didn’t necessarily lose $100M.

 

[MonkD]

The game feels like it's made to screw the customers though. The season pass is a massive grind, and has been since the beta. There are a million different events with just as many currencies going on at all times. And if you can navigate that you can pickup some stuff for free, but it's still going to be a grind(which i guess is fine for f2p).

Gameplay is solid. And the roster has been cool too, but having Nubia as the 6th character released post beta is weird as fuck. The character has maybe 4 fans at most. No shit it's going to underperform.

I think they game could've done better as a full priced title with a fleshed out roster and with real game modes. After that you can start selling DLC characters. Probably would've done better than whatever their microtransactions are doing now. I wonder if Marvel Rivals will have some impact on these money grubbing games.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

I was all in on this game during the first early access/beta launch, and I spent some money on MTX. But it came clear that the devs were incapable of addressing serious balancing issues amongst others, which soured me to the extent I called it quits. Player numbers were dwindling at the time.
Shortly after, the game was suddenly pulled and became unavailable so the devs could focus development on the game, which seemed a bit odd. This caused a controversy as people that already paid for microtransactions/battlepass, were now unable to play the game.

I predicted a re-launch would be a lost cause and waste of time & money and now here we are.

 

[Chechack]

Im sure that hack Lebron James cost them shitload of money

 

[Mister Wolf]

They all try to come at Smash Bros' throne, and all fail.

 

[TheAtomicPile]

Im sure that hack Lebron James cost them shitload of money

All time leading NBA scorer, 4x champion, and 4x Finals MVP LeBron James? That hack?

Maybe he has some kind of deal with WB based on Space Jam 2 and now this.

 

[Revolutionary]

Warner will quickly go back at selling skins in Fortnite.

I thought the reason they stopped is because Epic made a deal with Disney?

 

[NeverYouMind]

They all try to come at Smash Bros' throne, and all fail.

That is because Smash Bros is garbage mechanically and only gets by on the fanservice.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Noooo…

 

[Generic]

I thought the reason they stopped is because Epic made a deal with Disney?

According to leakers, some DC skins are getting updates which means they are returning soon.

 

[Ribi]

All time leading NBA scorer, 4x champion, and 4x Finals MVP LeBron James? That hack?

Maybe he has some kind of deal with WB based on Space Jam 2 and now this.

cry baby diva, hack, bitch.

 

[tkscz]

At this point they've spent all the money they got from MK1 and Hogwarts Legacy on failed GaaS endeavors.

 

[Fake]

Imagine Suicide Squad...

 

[PJX]

Im sure that hack Lebron James cost them shitload of money

 

[StreetsofBeige]

$100M loss WTF? How much did they spend on this game?

Its modern day gaming. Seems like any game with half decent production values can somehow cost $100M.

But give employees credit, or whichever media/marketing companies/celebs getting good revenue from marketing expenditures. Get paid a lot of money over many years for a failed product.

Media and techie companies often have obscene corporate coffers to blow money.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Its modern day gaming. Seems like any game with half decent production values can somehow cost $100M.

But give employees credit, or whichever media/marketing companies/celebs getting good revenue from marketing expenditures. Get paid a lot of money over many years for a failed product.

Media and techie companies often have obscene corporate coffers to blow money.

$100M budget isn’t hard to believe but $100M LOSS is pretty crazy. That indicates a massive gulf between their expectations and reality.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Im sure that hack Lebron James cost them shitload of money

I didnt follow this game except remembering batman and scooby doo characters in it. Didnt know Lebron was in it.

Probably got paid $10M alone. Its a guess, but I'm kind of serious.

 

[Power Pro]

 

[PendekarRajawali]

Nintendo:

 

[diffusionx]

$100M loss WTF? How much did they spend on this game?

It’s not a $100 million loss. A write down is when they say that the value of an asset is not what they thought it was and they… write it down. It’s mainly an accounting thing.

 

[SHA]

The game feels like it's made to screw the customers though. The season pass is a massive grind, and has been since the beta. There are a million different events with just as many currencies going on at all times. And if you can navigate that you can pickup some stuff for free, but it's still going to be a grind(which i guess is fine for f2p).

Gameplay is solid. And the roster has been cool too, but having Nubia as the 6th character released post beta is weird as fuck. The character has maybe 4 fans at most. No shit it's going to underperform.

I think they game could've done better as a full priced title with a fleshed out roster and with real game modes. After that you can start selling DLC characters. Probably would've done better than whatever their microtransactions are doing now. I wonder if Marvel Rivals will have some impact on these money grubbing games.

Nobody can grind if they work serious jobs, most of them actually play on mobile, even surgeons.

 

[MiguelItUp]

The game felt shallow. So they took it away and brought it back and nothing really changed. They added some content but it felt like the bare minimum all things considered. The game even plays and feels like it was made by first time devs. It's just rough all over the place. The monetization is absurd, so are some of the objectives/quests in the game. It's a shame. It's definitely one of those things that had potential, but not with the current roadmap.

 

[SALMORE]

a smash clone that focuses on tag team ! yeah we all know that it's going to fail

 

[Bridges]

The game gets a lot of hate but I'm a big fan. I hope it sticks around

 

[Dacvak]

I’m even one of those sweaty competitive smash players, and I thought the game was ass. The only thing the devs did wrong was made a bad game. Look at Rivals to see how a non-Nintendo smash game can succeed in all merits.

 

[kevboard]

That is because Smash Bros is garbage mechanically and only gets by on the fanservice.

you spelled Mortal Kombat wrong

 

[MonkD]

Nobody can grind if they work serious jobs, most of them actually play on mobile, even surgeons.

I agree. And the people grinding hours for free crap are not likely to be the customers you're looking for anyways

 

[Ceadeus]

These are characters meant to be in Saturday morning cartoons, for kids under 10. Does multiversus has mtx? If so, it's weird because 10 yrs old don't have credit card ...

How young do these greedy companies want their "customer" acclimated to spending money?

Next up, a paw patrol Battle Royale maybe?

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It’s not a $100 million loss. A write down is when they say that the value of an asset is not what they thought it was and they… write it down. It’s mainly an accounting thing.

Thanks this makes a little more sense. I’m somewhat familiar with the idea of a write down but I’ve only heard it used WRT to the value of some asset. So they had “Multiversus” on their books as an asset and now they’re saying it’s worth $100M less than they previously accounted for?

 

[MonkD]

These are characters meant to be in Saturday morning cartoons, for kids under 10. Does multiversus has mtx? If so, it's weird because 10 yrs old don't have credit card ...

How young do these greedy companies want their "customer" acclimated to spending money?

Next up, a paw patrol Battle Royale maybe?

Roster is alright in terms of relevance. Characters like Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack are probably targeting the 90s kids.

This feels like it's one of those games that fell victim to the "We want the Fortnite GAAS money"-era. Not sure how well the Nickelodeon Smash has done, but at least it got a sequel. Odd that games can't break into a genre that has such a big pull. Especially when they don't have to compete with Smash Bros outside of Nintendo consoles.

Funny how Warner Bros only single player game is the one that made a lot of money. And it had a lot of the gaming media boycotting it too. Says a lot about the state of the industry.

 

[Rush2112]

Every failed live service game is a victory for humanity and life.

 

[Gambit2483]

I think they game could've done better as a full priced title with a fleshed out roster and with real game modes. After that you can start selling DLC characters. Probably would've done better than whatever their microtransactions are doing now. I wonder if Marvel Rivals will have some impact on these money grubbing gagames.

This.

They tried to be greedy and use it as a Live Service money pit , hoping to constantly squeeze money out of gamers with overpriced skins, battle passes and whatever BS microtransactions they could come up with, instead of just making a fun, competent game that had a decent roster, stages and game modes, including single player focused gameplay.

Wouldn't be surprised if Nickelodeon All star brawl performed better than this.

 

[LegendOfKage]

It was missing features even the beta had, and the grind for new characters was insane with loads of hoops to jump through. If they wanted to make getting characters easier to get, to encourage people to play, they should have started with that and had people grind only heavily for cosmetics.

 

[diffusionx]

Thanks this makes a little more sense. I’m somewhat familiar with the idea of a write down but I’ve only heard it used WRT to the value of some asset. So they had “Multiversus” on their books as an asset and now they’re saying it’s worth $100M less than they previously accounted for?

it's a write down to their game division, not this game in particular.

 

[MonkD]

This.

They tried to be greedy and use it as a Live Service money pit , hoping to constantly squeeze money out of gamers with overpriced skins, battle passes and whatever BS microtransactions they could come up with, instead of just making a fun, competent game that had a decent roster, stages and game modes, including single player focused gameplay.

Wouldn't be surprised if Nickelodeon All star brawl performed better than this.

Since this is underperforming and Nickelodeon got a sequel we can assume that Nick did better. Very unfortunate with the IP's they have access to through Warner Bros.