Warner Bros. Now Deleting Games

[GreyLord]

WB could find a way to release those completed (and nearly completed) films and still make a profit, a ridiculous profit. They could find a way to keep these movies and games available to the public, and still make ridiculous profits (if perhaps not always by specific project). But they can make a greater profit by playing "Hollywood accounting" and shuttering completed already released projects, so they do.

I think this is short-sighted of WB and will hurt them in the long run. We'll see. But things likely won't fundamentally change unless forced by societal changes . . . so, not going to hold my breath.

Not necessarily.

Let's say they spent 90 million on the production of Batgirl already, If they did no marketing at all, they are told that a release will bring in around 21 million dollars. This means they are in the hole by 69 million. They effectively lost 69 million dollars just by releasing it.

Let's say they do a minimal advertising campaign...their clever marketers say the movie is estimated then to make 28 million dollars after they spent 10 million in marketing They are now 72 million dollars poorer.

So, instead they go all out with the marketing and spend 90 million on marketing the film. The film is estimated to make 65 million dollars. They are now 115 million dollars poorer.

Then they think they have the opportunity for a tax write off, if they do this they can write the 90 million off as a loss and make it up in taxes, meaning they spent all that money, but also now have not lost any of it. Thus their gain is 0, but their losses are also 0.

To be clear, I'd have rather them release Batgirl, if for nothing else than it had Keaton as Batman (for however short a time it was i the film). Alas, it seems not to be...at least for me.

PS: It was a similar thinking of releasing things no matter what the budget which helped to sink T$R many decades ago. They'd have a massive budget on something that would never bring in close to that amount of money...and so they'd end up losing money and being poorer for it. We got things we love, but some of those planescape and dark sun supplements (among others...especially like the encyclopedia of magic and such) cost T$R a pretty penny they couldn't afford to pay long ago.