Warner Bros. Games is facing significant financial challenges, with MultiVersus underperforming and contributing to a $300 million writedown in 2024. Despite regular content updates, the game's player base has dwindled since its May re-launch, and issues like balance problems and high-priced content have deterred players. Warner Bros. is now focusing on more stable franchises like Game of Thrones and Mortal Kombat, amid rumors of selling its gaming division. The future of MultiVersus remains uncertain.
Destiny 2's player numbers and sales are surging ahead of the release of its final Light and Darkness expansion, The Final Shape. The game has seen a significant increase in player count and is topping Steam charts, driven by successful updates and pre-orders. Despite internal challenges at Bungie, the game is on a positive trajectory.
The friendship system in Pokemon Go has become a major problem, with players exploiting it to gain XP while their friends receive nothing. This has led to frustration within the playerbase, prompting calls for Niantic to make significant changes to the system, such as only granting XP when both players have claimed it. The community is eager for improvements to address this issue and enhance the overall gaming experience.
Despite losing 84% of its playerbase on Steam from its peak of 2.1 million, the game Palworld is still performing well and has around 350,000 concurrent players a night, placing it above almost everything but the "core" Steam games. With 15 million players on Steam and 10 million on Xbox, the game has the potential to be one of the biggest successes of the year, generating significant revenue. Updates focused on addressing cheaters have been released, and future plans include adding more content such as new Pals, gear, PvE endgame raids, and PvP fights.
Despite controversy, Warzone 2's BlackCell Battle Pass add-on has topped Steam's best-sellers list. The Battle Pass offering provides exclusive content and skins to those who purchase it, but its steep price has caused backlash. The community has been calling for change, but successful sales of the BlackCell may work against what players want. There is a split in the community between those who want change and those who are enjoying the game and are happy to continue spending money on it.
Top Warzone 2 pros and streamers are returning to Caldera due to frustrations with the current game and its direction. Many players prefer the feel and gameplay of Warzone 1. Streamers have been celebrating the fluid movement and heightened skill gap of Caldera. Some top stars have even taken to trolling Activision and the devs. The playerbase is dropping, and the devs will need to make changes to win over players.
Star Citizen's latest alpha release, 3.18, caused the game's servers to crash due to an overwhelming number of players trying to log in at once. Despite efforts to fix the issue, many players are still locked out and those who can access the game are experiencing crippling bugs. The game's persistent universe is still suffering from a partial outage. Star Citizen's playerbase, many of whom paid for the game years ago, are understandably frustrated with the ongoing development issues.
