The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2017–2020
Marvel's Avengers: Square Enix's $170–190M game sold 3M of a 5M target
Square Enix expected 5M sales by September 2020; the game sold 3M, and the HD games unit posted a ~$63M quarterly loss it blamed on Avengers.
Square Enix · 2020-09-04
What happened
Marvel's Avengers — developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix, with an estimated budget of $170–190 million — was released September 4, 2020 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia. Square Enix expected it to sell five million copies by the end of September; it sold three million.
The miss showed up in the books immediately: Square Enix's half-year results revealed roughly ¥6.5 billion ($63 million) of losses in the HD games segment in the quarter, which analyst David Gibson of Astris Advisory attributed primarily to Avengers' poor sales. President Yosuke Matsuda later called the game's outcome 'disappointing' while defending the games-as-a-service approach.
Square Enix ended official support on September 30, 2023, delisting the game from digital storefronts after a final update in March. The project stands as the most expensive failure in the publisher's modern history — a licensed superhero game that sold millions and still lost tens of millions.
Why it happened
- Square Enix priced the game as a 5M-copy event while shipping a service game with thin endgame content: players finished the campaign and left, and 3M sales could not carry a $170–190M cost.
- The GaaS pivot ignored the property's audience: Marvel fans came for story and characters, and the game's grindy, loot-driven endgame answered a question nobody had asked.
- The license was the trap: a $170–190M game carrying Marvel licensing costs needed blockbuster sales, but the release model matched neither the fans' expectations nor the service-game economics.
The lesson
A license is a floor, not a ceiling: Marvel's Avengers sold 3 million copies and still lost tens of millions — the biggest risk is the gap between the name's reach and the product's pull.
Sources
- Gamepressure — Square Enix's Half-year Results Reveal Marvel's Avengers Flopped Hard
- GamesIndustry.biz — Square Enix president says Marvel's Avengers had a 'disappointing outcome'
- Wikipedia — Marvel's Avengers (video game)
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
More like this
Blue Protocol: Bandai Namco's anime MMO shut down after 19 months
Toei financed a 2.5B yen film with Japan's first movie security token, and lost most of it
Hyenas: Sega cancelled its most expensive game ever, writing off ~¥14.3B
Somewhere, someone solved the problem this company failed at. 2nd Opinion →
Comments · 0
Sign in to join the comments.