At the end of a week in which publisher Square Enix publicly expressed disappointment at how Marvel’s Avengers has gone down, the game has some good news: one of the most popular Marvelmen is coming later this month, Spider-Man. OH. But he’s exclusive to the PlayStation version. Oh no. That’s not good news to lift spirits at all.
“Spider-Man’s aerobatics offer a whole new way to experience the game whether solo or with friends, and his unique mobility and combat are sure to be a bonus.” A great addition to any Assault Team participating in Avengers Initiative missions,” a press release said.
A whole new way to experience games on PlayStation. A great addition to any Assault Team on PlayStation.
Spidey will launch PlayStations on November 30th. We’ll still see the update on PC after that, with changes including an increased energy cap and a new way to earn cosmetics, but without the wizards. new. See notice for more.
System-specific content in a game feels like it old. It’s not 2013 anymore. Exclusive skins would be one thing but one of the biggest Marvel superheroes? Sheesh.
Square Enix made some decisions with this game. In September, it added paid XP promoters, which seems to reverse previous statements that it won’t add “pay-to-win” microtransactions, then react violently remove them earlier this week.
Companies have said before that the game failed to meet sales expectations, and Squeenix president Yosuke Matsuda echoed that sentiment in their annual financial statements this week.
He said their venture into ‘games as a service’ (GaaS) was “ambitious” and weathered surprises including the pandemic, “but unfortunately it hasn’t proven to be the case.” as successful as we wanted it to be.” He added that “the new challenge we face with this title has produced a disappointing result”.
He goes on to hint that maybe Crystal Dynamics isn’t the best choice to make this game. He said that “using the GaaS model highlights problems we may face in future game development efforts, such as the need to choose the right game designs for the game.” unique attributes and tastes of our studios and development teams.”
It’s bewildering that Squeenix has landed one of the hottest licenses and the resulting game is, by most accounts, the same. Maybe a studio known for its single-player exploration shooters isn’t the ideal choice, because the transition from there to a live-service action RPG is huge. But heck, it’s hard to make a good game, the pressure and expectations for big budget games and huge licensing are hard, and it’s hard to deliver live service. Most licensed superhero games are mediocre even without live service. This is a huge undertaking, and I’m not surprised that the end result is simply, like, okay for a lot of people.
Matsuda said the company thinks GaaS “will grow in importance as games become more service-oriented”. They need to think about it. “How do we create new experiences by incorporating this trend into our game design is an important question we will need to answer in the future,” he said. I advise you to avoid nasty monetization and monopolies.
