The president of Square Enix claimed that Crystal Dynamics was not a good choice to develop Marvel’s Avengers, given his lack of experience with games as a service (GaaS).
Addressing shareholders in a statement published in the company’s annual report, Chairman Yosuke Matsuda said Square Enix needed to learn from the game’s “disappointing” performance. Notably, he highlighted the importance of combining development studios with “game designs” that best suit your skills and interests.
The developer of Avengers, Crystal Dynamics, is best known as the studio behind the series. Tomb Raider and his next project is a collaboration with Xbox Game Studios on Perfect Dark.
“Marvel’s Avengers it was an ambitious title for us, as we adopted the GaaS (Games as a Service) model”, said Matsuda (via VGC). “We overcame a variety of unexpected difficulties in the final stages of game development, including the need to transition to working at home due to the pandemic. We managed to overcome these challenges and launch the game, but unfortunately it didn’t have the success we would have liked”.
“However, taking on the GaaS model has highlighted issues that we are likely to face in future game development efforts, such as the need to select game designs that match the unique attributes and tastes of our studios and development teams. While the new challenge we faced with this title produced a disappointing result, we are certain that the GaaS approach will grow in importance as games become more service-oriented. How we are going to create new experiences by incorporating this trend into our game design is a key question that we will need to answer going forward,” said the president.
–
