Suicide Squad video game loses $200 million after Warner Bros. Discovery hires DEI consulting group

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. announced on an earnings call that the game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League lost the company $200 million.

On the Q1 2024 earnings call, investors heard from President and CEO David Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels.

Zaslav broke the bad news first and stated that "unfortunately," the studio's Q1 financials were overshadowed by the tough sales in the games department "following the great performance of Hogwarts Legacy last year and the disappointing release of Suicide Squad in Q1 in our gaming group."

"On the advertising front," Zaslav continued, "total company ad sales were down 7% in the quarter."

Wiedenfels then spoke to the studio losing hundreds of millions of dollars year-over-year. He, too, explained that despite a great performance of the game Hogwarts Legacy, the studio still hemorrhaged from the Suicide Squad game.

"Starting with Studios, the $400 million plus year-over-year decline in Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp [comparable sales] we faced in games against the success of Hogwarts Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization] during the first quarter."

The actual figures of the losses were a reported $607 million in Q1 2023 down to just $184 million in Q1 2024; a 70% decrease.

Wiedenfels' shocking revelation accounted for the company's studio segment, which includes video games, television, and theatrical and home entertainment operations, Bounding into Comics reported.

'Game companies are starting to face the music for their poor decisions. Instead of listening to gamers, they decided to destroy beloved IPs with political messaging.'

The game's budget was approximately $100 million, according to the Gamer, meaning the studio must have forked out at least the same in advertising, marketing, residuals, and other expenses.

The website also noted that Sony offered full refunds for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Getting a refund from Sony was likened to trying to get blood from a stone.

Outlets have also pointed to the minuscule amount of gamers actually playing the game still. At the time of this writing, there are just 94 people playing the title, with a 24-hour peak of 145.

"Game companies are starting to face the music for their poor decisions. Instead of listening to gamers, they decided to destroy beloved IPs with political messaging while delivering less quality gameplay, more bugs, and over monetization," game designer Mark Kern told Blaze News.

"A $200M loss cannot be ignored, and studio heads at Warner will be looking very closely at what their game developers are doing and will hopefully soon realize the mess that DEI/ESG has created," he added.

Kern pointed to fan outrage over the game's killing of Batman as one of the problem points, while characters like the purplish/red-haired child version of Poison Ivy caught the ire of gamers.

The latter is reportedly a creation of Sweet Baby Inc., a company known for providing diversity consulting and injecting DEI narratives into video games. Website DEI Detected pointed out the game is listed on Sweet Baby Inc.'s website.

"This is a message to other video game developers that woke ideology and getting in bed with woke consultants like Sweet Baby Inc. does not pay. Gamers are done with it," added That Park Place editor John F. Trent.

Diversity-driven games have been at the center of a battleground of ideas in 2024, and this spectacular failure by Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is definitely a significant loss for the side that seeks to further include racial and gender politics in games.

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