During its Financial Results Briefing Session for the first half of
the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, Square Enix revealed that Marvel’s Avengers hasn’t recouped its development costs. Marvel’s Avengers came out in September 2020, which means that it’s not profitable after two whole months.
As Square Enix stated when asked about the estimated ¥7B operating loss in the HD Games sub-segment.
“Absent factors associated with “Marvel’s Avengers,” the sub-segment would have been in the black. In addition to the amortization of that game’s development costs, another significant factor associated with the title was the fact that we undertook a major advertising campaign at the time of its launch to make up for delays in our marketing efforts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a certain amount of development costs still to be amortized in 3Q, but we want to recoup it by growing our sales going forward.”
Square Enix has also stated that it intends to invest in new IPs.
“In regards to growing our customer base by creating new IP, I have to say that creating new IP is extremely challenging and that the difficulty involved has definitely increased. However, continuing to work to create new IP is essential to our further growth. As such, we will continue to do so. In addition, it is our intention to continue to expand our stable recurring earnings so that we will be able to stand up to that challenge.”
Square Enix has not revealed how many copies Marvel’s Avengers has sold so far. However, Square Enix has always been setting really high standards. In 2013, the publisher stated that Tomb Raider needed to sell 5-6 million copies. Hitman Absolution also needed to hit 4.5-5 million sales, and Sleeping Dogs had to sell 2-2.5 million units.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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