Square Enix have revealed their Q3 financial results from their briefing earlier this month, yielding a couple of surprises:

There was some interesting information that has come out of the recent Square Enix Financial Results Briefing held on the 4th February 2022. Most notably the mentioning that Guardians of the Galaxy, despite strong reviews and positive consumer feedback, undershot their expectations. However, they note that a new sales initiative they put in place in November 2021 and into the new year, has resulted in sales growth, and they intend to continue this to make up for the games slow start.

A look back at Square Enix’ past

The question is why has this happened? There was a similar story back in 2013, when their briefing that year they mentioned that Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs all had the similar missed sales expectations. All three games were well received by critics and consumers, each also sold 3.6 million, 3.4 million and 1.75 million respectively. This lead to Hitman eventually leaving with developer IO Interactive, Tomb Raider got two sequels and Sleeping Dogs died alongside the closure of United Force Games.

What’s the problem with Guardians of the Galaxy?

I do have my own theories on why these games didn’t meet their expectations. First off I feel Square Enix’ expectations were too high. It comes across as Square Enix wanting games to perform like Final Fantasy does or they feel like western developed games should do better in the west, just like Japanese games should do better in Japan, I don’t think that’s a fair measurement.

Guardians of the Galaxy video game art

Another thing that comes to mind is the messaging of these releases. Let’s take Guardians of the Galaxy for example, it got good reviews and an even better consumer response, so what happened? A lot of the kick-back against this game was people thought it was mechanically the same as the Marvels Avengers game released the previous year, and whilst the two games were nothing alike, I don’t think Square Enix did enough to message this. Thus not getting the sour taste out of peoples mouths of the mediocre quality of the Avengers game.

I thought it important to mention too that, on the other side of the coin of the financial briefing their year on year net sales rose substantially. This was mainly due to subscriber numbers and a new expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, so that train is firmly on the tracks making money for Square Enix.

How do you feel about Guardians not meeting expectations, was it down to the game? Square Enix not doing a good enough job of the marketing/messaging? Or us as consumers? I would love to hear your thoughts.