Marvel's Avengers - an action-adventure game released earlier this year - hasn't exactly performed as planned for developer Square Enix. In fact, it's racked up quite the loss to the tune of $48 million. Ouch.
Reported by PC Gamer, Square Enix saw a loss of $48 million in Q2 of the 2020 financial year. They released this information in a copy of financial results where it became obvious that Marvel's Avengers had operated at a loss after mediocre reviews and low sales.
The observation was made by David Gibson, a games industry analyst based in Tokyo, Japan. He tweeted out, "Square Enix - reported Yen 6.5bn loss for HD Games driven by Marvel's Avengers, would not say how many sold but that volumes were 60% of plan. Implies game cost over $100m to make but only sold 3m or so.
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It looks like the total cost of the game is closer to $170m - $190m given they only expense 70% of the cost in the quarter plus marketing costs. Why someone didn't say stop post the multiplayer beta will remain a mystery. Square are adamant they can make a recovery."
Although single-player superhero games like Spider-Man (2016) have done incredibly well, Marvel's Avengers is more focused on live, multiplayer content. New missions and heroes are to be released as the game goes on, and it wants you to play with other real gamers - it even dumps you into a VC with strangers with no warning. Believe us when we say that came as a surprise. This live element, however, might be the mechanic to sell more copies of the game down the line.
One would have thought that the game was surely a winner for the company. There has been a boom over the last decade in the superhero film category with the climax of over twenty films culminating in Avengers: Endgame, which is the highest-grossing film of all time. These films have been such a huge success for Marvel and Disney, that it seems like a safe bet for an Avengers game to do well - but that obviously hasn't been the case. Scoring a pretty low 67/100 on Metacritic, fans and critics were a little disappointed about the scope of the game and it was pretty buggy upon release.
Featured Image Credit: Square EnixTopics: Marvel's Avengers, News
