While the movies have raked in billions, it seems The Avengers property isn’t quite as profitable for Marvel on the video game front.
Tokyo-based gaming journalist David Gibson has reported that Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics’ Marvel’s Avengers has only sold around 3 million copies since its release in September. For comparison, the Spider-Man game for PlayStation 4 sold 3.3 million copies in its first three days.
Square Enix – reported Yen6.5bn loss for HD Games driven by Marvel Avengers, would not say how many sold but that volumes were 60% of plan. Implies game cost over $100m to make but only sold 3m or so. Ouch
— David Gibson (@gibbogame) November 6, 2020
Gibson went on to add that he believes the total cost of Marvel’s Avengers is actually closer to $170m-$190m. With the game’s budget and the number of copies sold, it’s projected that the game only shifted 60% of their estimates.
Avengers isn’t just struggling on the console front as well as SteamCharts numbers suggested PC audience for the game had fallen between 1000-2000 people a month after launch. Eurogamer notes that in early November, only 798 people were playing Marvel’s Avengers on Steam.
Again, this is a stark contrast to how Marvel and Avengers usually perform (the latest film Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing movie of all time upon its release last year). Hopefully, the upcoming DLC and updates that Crystal Dynamics promised to be working “as fast as we safely can” will attract people back to the game.
