AEW Fight Forever Flopped With A Reported $30 Million In Losses
AEW's 2023 video game, *Fight Forever*, reportedly suffered a massive $30 million loss, significantly overshooting its budget and missing sales targets by half. Gaming journalist Mike Straw revealed development delays pushed its release, escalating costs and leading to lukewarm reviews. With no current agreement with developer Yukes, a direct sequel is highly improbable. This financial setback adds to a critical period for AEW, which faces uncertainties with its WBD TV rights deal expiring in 2028 amid a potential WBD/Paramount+ merger. Despite strong pay-per-view performance, low TV attendance and "underwhelming" Wembley ticket sales further underscore the promotion's challenges, making a new game a distant prospect.
AEW Fight Forever came and went following its release in 2023. The video game rollout, led by current AEW world champion Kenny Omega, was marred with reports of going overbudget, with costs reaching 1.5 to two-times the original estimate.
Now, gaming journalist Mike Shaw of Insider Gaming (h/t Cagesideseats.com) is delivering sober news about the Fight Forever flop that most dirtsheet journalists were afraid to even broach given their ethically eye-rolling loyalty to Tony Khan and their access to AEW.
Mike Straw reported that AEW Fight Forever lost upwards of $30 million.
Straw noted that AEW does not have an agreement in place with Yukes, the developer of Fight Forever, and does not believe there will be a follow-up to AEW Fight Forever given its massive losses despite the fact that AEW owns the engine.
AEW Fight Forever’s release was a bittersweet moment given the struggles to get to market, and many top stars were omitted from the game due to deadline issues. These stars include the Acclaimed, FTR, Toni Storm, Claudio Castagnoli, Danhausen and Swerve. Some stars were added to the game via post-launch DLC packs.
Reviews of the game were lukewarm at best. Many seemed to enjoy Fight Forever’s arcade style of in-game combat, but some criticisms called out its bare-boned Create-A-Wrestler features. In the end, sales suggested that most fans skipped this game entirely.
AEW remains interested in remaining in the gaming division, but this will not materialize until the distant future. For now, AEW has bigger fish to fry, and those fish will rely on the tumultuous merger between Paramount+ and WBD. The $111 billion merger has divided Hollywood amid a legal battle from the State of California to stop the deal altogether.
AEW’s current TV rights deal with WBD will expire in 2028, and AEW is nearing negotiation talks in search of an increase. The multitude of variables make it impossible to predict when or if AEW will secure a new lucrative television rights deal similar to their renewal by WBD in 2023.
AEW is a privately owned company, but there are still multiple Key Performance Indicators that will contribute to whether or not a streamer will pay for their product. Attendance has been low in 2026, with the average TV show hovering around 3,000 fans.
AEW’s video game loss will serve as another Black eye for the promotion’s business. But AEW remains strong on pay-per-view, where buyrates and attendance are more stable, though ticket sales for its third trip to Wembley Stadium for AEW All In have underwhelmed. With AEW moving thousands of tickets in days, as it closes in on 40,000, this figures to be a heavily papered event in a quarter-full stadium with a gate that will not match its freebie-filled attendance.
The next 12 months will be crucial for AEW. And as many uncertainties as there are, a second video game is certainly not happening anytime soon.