Deus Ex might have been shelved to make way for Marvel's Avengers, but it doesn't look like it paid off.
Like a lump of flesh that’s been carved off to be grafted back on with a cybernetic enhancement later, the Deus Ex series is on ice. Square Enix made the decision to cut the series - originally planned as a trilogy, as evident by Mankind Divided’s cliffhanger ending - in favour of Marvel’s Avengers.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was an expensive project and it didn’t quite hit the sales targets the publisher hoped for. Marvel’s Avengers, meanwhile, was a sure thing - everyone loves superheroes, everyone loves Destiny, so smooshing those two things together seems like a no-brainer, right? If Steam stats are a good indicator, that line of thinking hasn’t quite worked out.
Related: Gaming Detail: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Has A Fully-Functional Pool Table
Over the last 24 hours, Marvel’s Avengers has managed a peak of just under 4,000 players. Even during launch, it managed to hit an all-time concurrent peak of 31,165. In comparison, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided hit an all-time peak of 52,485. This tells a story - especially since one of these games is a multiplayer game designed to be played forever, and one is a single-player RPG that apparently didn't sell well enough.
It’s also telling that, so far, Square Enix has been quiet about sales numbers of Marvel’s Avengers. While the game topped the physical sales charts during its first week of release, Marvel’s Avengers only sold a third of what PS4 exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man sold. Avengers is multiplatform and multiplayer, and Spider-Man is on one console and single-player only. It paints a worrying picture for the future of the game.
Obviously, Square Enix could turn things around - this wouldn’t be the first service game to face a rocky launch and redeem itself. Then again, it could go the way of BioWare’s Anthem, which has been threatening to be reborn as something new ever since it launched.
It likely hasn’t helped that the Marvel’s Avengers launch was plagued with bugs and stability issues.
Next: Marvel's Avengers Review: Further Assembly Required
BYYan on September 29th, 2020 at 15:06 UTC »
Maybe when I play a power-fantasy superhero game, what I want is actually to feel like a powerful superhero, and not do math to figure out which pair of pants will let me punch things 0.3% harder. Pants that I can't even see when I wear them.
An action game with purposefully hamstrung action, and a looting game where you can't actually show off the loot you get... W.T.H.
Fire_Gaming_UAV on September 29th, 2020 at 15:03 UTC »
It's almost as if people wanted a single player game and got a live service bullshit instead.
USPrimeMinister on September 29th, 2020 at 14:01 UTC »
I wonder if like most publishers SE will take away from this all the reasons why the game failed that is not the overbearing monetization and splitting up content to chase exclusivity deals with consoles and retailers, announcing separate season passes for each character and just coming up with more and more ways to extract extra money out of the consumer beyond the initial $60. I mean leading up to the game I feel like I heard way more about the different extra stuff they would like you to pay for with this game than the actual game itself. That combined with bragging about Spiderman being exclusive to 1 console really turned me off from the game.
And then it didn't help that the game came out and the reception was lukewarm at best. But I'm sure like most publishers they will turn this into a "I guess people don't want to play the single player campaign" or something.