The writing was on the wall early on for Marvel’s Avengers when the Crystal Dynamics team had precious little time to fix issues arising from the beta version before the game was released. Since then, despite the team behind the game working incredibly hard to correct its course, it’s occasionally been compared to BioWare’s Anthem, a title largely mocked for its notoriously troubled launch last year. Over on Twitter, Tokyo-based games industry analyst David Gibson posted that Square Enix would not confirm how many units were sold, but that “volumes were 60% of plan,” adding that this “implies game cost over $100m to make but only sold 3m or so.” “It looks like the total cost of the game is closer to $170m-$190m given they only expense 70% of cost in the qtr plus marketing costs,” Gibson continued. “Why someone didn’t say stop post the multiplayer beta will remain a mystery. Square are adamant they can make a recovery …” Developer Crystal Dynamics was swift to reassure its base in early October that Marvel’s Avengers still had plenty of fuel in the tank and big expansion plans were in the pipeline. But Eurogamer notes that even back then, SteamCharts numbers “suggested the game’s PC audience had slumped to between 1000-2000 people a month after launch” and that now only around 798 people are still playing it on Steam. Our own reviewer Bernard Boo said the game left him “with the bitter taste of a middling, Destiny-like action-looter that unfortunately undermines the truly great things that the game does have going for it.” Will Marvel’s Avengers be able to go the distance? Only time will tell.
