It looks like the events of Avengers: Infinity War and the machinations of Thanos, the Mad Titan weren’t the only losses that Marvel’s premiere superhero team, the Avengers, have suffered in the recent past. In the latest Square Enix earnings report, president Yosuke Matsuda admitted that Marvel’s Avengers has been disappointing and that the company will need to learn from its underachieving performance in the future.
“Marvel’s Avengers was an ambitious title for us in that we took on the GaaS (Games as a Service) model,” Matsuda said. “We overcame a variety of unexpected difficulties in the final phase of the game’s development, including needing to transition to work-from-home due to the pandemic. We were able to surmount these challenges and release the game, but it has unfortunately not proven as successful as we would have liked.”
Matsuda went on to explain that Crystal Dynamics, the development team behind Marvel’s Avengers and past game such as Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain and an upcoming collaborative effort on a Perfect Dark reboot with Xbox Games Studios owned The Initiative, may not have been as congruous a fit for Marvel’s Avengers as they originally envisioned.
Square Enix
“Nonetheless, taking on the GaaS model highlighted issues that we are likely to face in future game development efforts such as the need to select game designs that mesh with the unique attributes and tastes of our studios and development teams,” Matsuda continued. “While the new challenge that we tackled with this title produced a disappointing outcome, we are certain that the GaaS approach will grow in importance as gaming becomes more service oriented.”
Crystal Dynamics faced backlash from fans earlier this week not only for the fact that Marvel’s Avengers has been disappointing, but on account of instituting paid experience point boosters, called Hero’s Catalysts and Fragment Extractors, which could be purchased through the in-game marketplace.
“We apologize for not responding sooner to your concerns about the addition of paid consumables in the Marketplace,” the development team said through an official statement on Twitter. “We introduced them as an option for an evolving player base, and did not see them as pay-to-win since they don’t offer power directly.”
What do you think of Square Enix admitting that Marvel’s Avengers has been disappointing? Do you think they’ll learn from their gaffe in the future? What could they have done to have prevented the game’s underwhelming impact?
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