The latest financial report from Square Enix speaks of 50 million euros in losses caused by the poor results of the game of The Avengers.
It seems that Square Enix is not going through its best moment and all eyes point to Marvel’s Avengers as responsible for it. In its latest financial report, the Japanese company announces losses of more than 52 million euros between the period from April to September 2020, both months included. That is, the same period of time in which the demanding marketing campaign of the game was carried out and during the first month of its life, which was launched on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Google Stadia last day 4 of September. The developer clearly indicates that such losses belong to its “HD Games” division, in charge of major releases, such as the Avengers game. The sections for MMOs and mobile titles have saved the ballot and are showing profits throughout the year.
Marvel Avengers- it looks like the total cost of the game is closer to $ 170m- $ 190m given they only expenses 70% of cost in the qtr 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 ….
– David Gibson (@gibbogame) November 7, 2020
Although Square Enix has not offered an exact number of units sold, specialized analysts such as David Gibson estimate that the figures could be about 60% less than expected. According to Gibson, Marvel’s Avengers could have cost more than 143 million euros and have sold out “just” three million games. “It is a mystery why no one said to stop everything after what happened with the multiplayer beta,” says the analyst, “but Square Enix is convinced that it can recover.” Some statements in line with the last words of its developer, Crystal Dynamics, whose president, Scott Amos, hopes to recover players in the coming months, as new content for the game comes out. In any case, media such as PC Gamer already highlight the similarities with “the Anthem case” and show that the numbers of The Avengers are even more striking due to their contrast with the figures of Final Fantasy VII Remake, the other great launch of the company in 2020.
No next gen version until 2021
The truth is that the latest news about Marvel’s Avengers is not very flattering. In mid-October, for example, we knew that the next gen version has been delayed to 2021, leaving the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S without improvements for the moment. And after two months of its launch, on PC the title registers an average of between 1000 and 2000 daily players, a figure very far from those of Destiny 2 (with between 30,000 and 50,000), or those of Warframe (around 35,000) . As a precautionary measure to that plummeting decline in numbers, Crystal Dynamics has cut the price of DLC (mostly cosmetic) in half. We will see if the strategy works and if the developer is able to turn the situation around. He still has some ace up his sleeve, such as the new playable characters that are already announced and should be arriving in the not too distant future, see the case of Spider-Man (although Peter in particular is exclusive to PS4 and PS5).
