Marvel’s Avengers is not a financial success for publisher Square Enix. In a report to investors, the company president expressed clear words and admitted that the development costs have not even been recouped. However, they do not want to give up on the game just yet. A model here is likely the later success of games like Final Fantasy XIV.
What has been said about Marvel’s Avengers? Yosuke Matsude, the president of publisher Square Enix, recently released a report to investors. It also addressed the troubled Marvel’s Avengers. That the superhero MMO is not performing well is no secret. The player numbers are dwindling and the game has caused huge losses for the publisher in light of sales.
According to Matsude, the game has not even recouped its development costs:
The initial sales of “Marvel’s Avengers” were lower than we expected and could not fully cover the amortization of the game’s development costs. In the second half of the fiscal year (“2H”), we hope to compensate for the sluggish initial sales by offering plenty of additional content to boost our sales.
Square Enix wants to turn things around
What is specifically planned? The “plentiful additional content” mentioned by the CEO is partly already known.
We know that at least Kate Bishop will be coming to the servers on December 8, 2020. Early in 2021, content regarding Hawkeye and the villain Maestro will be released.
A leak has already revealed several more Marvel heroes, including Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, War Machine, and Black Panther. Additionally, a large raid in Wakanda is firmly scheduled. However, these contents do not yet have a release date.
Will Avengers ultimately be a success like FF14? Indeed, Square Enix has once successfully saved a virtually dead game and turned it into a real hit: the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.
Here, the outstanding development chief Naoki Yoshida and his team were able to completely redesign the game through hard work, ultimately making it one of the publisher’s most successful titles.
I fear the worst and hope for the best
If the currently struggling Marvel’s Avengers is to pull off a similar story, similar amounts of work will have to flow into the project. It will require massive bug fixes, much more new content, and a convincing marketing campaign.
After all, more must happen than just bringing the relatively unknown heroine Kate Bishop into the game with a bit of mission content months late and then talking about “plentiful new content.” The remaining fans of Avengers want more content, and they actually wanted it yesterday.
However, all this new content costs a lot of time and money, and it remains to be seen whether Square Enix and its investors are willing to bear it long enough.
Jürgen Horn
Editor at MeinMMO
By the way, I really do not want my superpower of killing games to repeat with Marvel’s Avengers. The game is simply too fun and entertaining.
