Marvel's Avengers Failed To Live Up To Expectations, But Square Enix Will Keep Making Live Service Games

Square Enix's president has commented on Marvel's Avengers, saying the game was not as successful as the company wanted it to be, for a variety of reasons. That being said, the company said it will continue to develop games-as-a-service titles, though it will seemingly be more discerning in selecting the right studio for the right project.

Yosuke Matsuda said in Square Enix's latest annual report that the game faced a "variety of unexpected difficulties" in the final stages of its development at Crystal Dynamics. This included a transition to work-from-home due to the pandemic. Matsuda said the team overcame the challenges, but the game was "unfortunately not proven as successful as we would have liked."

"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 said.

A live service game like Marvel's Avengers is not the type of game that Crystal Dynamics was known for in the past, with some of its previous releases being multiple entries in the new Tomb Raider trilogy.

"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," Matsuda added. "How we go about creating new experiences by incorporating this trend into our game design is a key question that we will need to answer going forward."

In other news, Square Enix has just announced that the 2.2 patch for Marvel's Avengers will be released on November 30, adding a new four-player raid and the newest hero, Spider-Man, on PlayStation consoles. The game's controversial paid XP boosts have been removed in the wake of fan backlash.

Square Enix's latest Marvel game was Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, which was developed by Eidos Montreal and launched at the end of October across console and PC. Unlike Marvel's Avengers, it is not a live service game.