Marvel’s Avengers Has Yet To Recoup Its Development Costs

Marvel’s Avengers‘ disappointing commercial performance since launch back in September has become something of a hot topic as of late.

Following on from the worrying news that concurrent players for the superpowered action-adventure have sunk to an all-time low on Valve’s Steam platform, analyst projections have further solidified suspicions that Crystal Dynamics’ most ambitious creation to date is in a spot of trouble, to say the least. While a cause for the colossal drop has yet to be officially stated, the consensus among players, both current and former, appears to be one of boredom born from a lack of endgame content.

As confirmed by Square president Yosuke Matsuda in the publisher’s latest HD Games financial results, Marvel’s Avengers‘ poor sales, as predicted, have led to an estimated ¥7 billion loss (roughly $67 million USD) for the company. Interestingly, Matsuda reveals in response to investor questions that had the game released in a previous quarter, it would already have turned a profit, with increased development and marketing costs necessitated by delays ultimately contributing to the current situation.

As for what happens from here on out, Matsuda says the current hope is to “make up for slow initial sales by offering ample additional content” in the form of new characters, maps and missions. As promised previously, all post-launch content of this nature will be free to download as soon as it becomes available, with monetization coming in the form of microtransactions and individual battle passes for each subsequent hero.

The first of these, Kate Bishop (AKA Hawkeye), is scheduled to land early next month on all platforms and her arrival will serve as an incredibly important indicator of whether DLC can entice lapsed and new Marvel’s Avengers players alike to visit the game. Watch this space for more.