The Tomb Raider devs should never have made Marvel's Avengers

At least according to Square Enix, who once again says that Crystal Dynamic's Marvel game has been a massive disappointment in terms of sales.

Square Enix didn't need long to admit that Marvel's Avengers had been a real disappointment in terms of sales earlier this year, and now it seems like the Japanese company has realised some of its missteps.

Square Enix President Yosuke Matsuda stated the following in Square Enix' latest fiscal report:

"I would also note that Marvel's Avengers was an ambitious title for us in that we took on the GaaS (Games as a Service) model. We overcame a variety of unexpected difficulties in the final phase of the game's development, including needing to transition to work-from-home due to the pandemic. We were able to surmount these challenges and release the game, but it has unfortunately not proven as successful as we would have liked. Nonetheless, taking on the GaaS model highlighted issues that we are likely to face in future game development efforts such as the need to select game designs that mesh with the unique attributes and tastes of our studios and development teams."

While this leaves some room for interpretation, my take is that Matsuda-san says that Crystal Dynamics, and other developer studio who are best known for their story-focused single-player games with none to small online aspects, shouldn't just jump in the GaaS or multiplayer water without at least putting their toe into it first (Bioware and Anthem, anyone?). This doesn't mean that Square Enix is done with similar games, however, as the President finishes that part of his statement with:

"While the new challenge that we tackled with this title produced a disappointing outcome, we are certain that the GaaS approach will grow in importance as gaming becomes more service oriented. How we go about creating new experiences by incorporating this trend into our game design is a key question that we will need to answer going forward".

What do you think? Would another team have managed to make Marvel's Avengers a success or should Crystal Dynamics have been allowed to solely make it a linear story-focused game?