Square Enix admitted it: Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy did not meet with the success expected by the publisher, despite favorable reviews. Faced with this bad start, Square-Enix hopes to catch up on the length, the title benefited from promotions shortly after its launch, and even arrived in the Xbox Game Pass just a few months after its release. And according to an analyst, this membership in the Microsoft program cost the manufacturer a lot of money.
A profitable operation?
Keep in mind that MSFT paid about US$5-$10m for Guardians of the Galaxy to be on Games Pass… that is like $2 per game when retail is $29. Ok that is all profit but not too many publishers will be doing that given the low economics from Game Pass.
— David Gibson (@gibbogame) March 26, 2022
David Gibsonanalyst at MST Financial, relayed by VGC, recently claimed on Twitter that to get the game in his Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft would have paid a sum of between 5 and 10 million dollars. A datum that has no has not been confirmed by Square Enix or the publisher, but believes after being in familiar contact with the file within the publisher.
If this sum seems to be colossal at first glance, it is relatively low for a game of this size. If we do a quick calculation, based on the sum of 30 euros for the game (since when it arrived in the Game Pass, it was indeed the price of the game), we estimate with a ladle that this would represent the equivalent of between 170,000 and 330,000 sales for Square Enix. The operation therefore has enough to be profitable at the end of the career, but was this really the case for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy ?
There would still be a lot of questions to ask, but the approach of the end of the fiscal year may have played in the balance and it was probably wiser to opt for this option with the publisher. It will also be necessary to see if thanks to this operation, word of mouth will work better (which is often the case with the Game Pass), and will therefore manage to make this strategy even more profitable.
To know more about this Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxydo not hesitate to consult our complete guide as well as our test.