Marvel x Electronic Arts, GTA… this week’s business news

news business Marvel x Electronic Arts, GTA… this week’s business news

Marvel and EA are collaborating to develop multiple games

Electronic Arts may no longer have exclusivity for Star Wars games, but the American company obviously remains a privileged interlocutor for Disney. Evidenced by the announcement of a whole new Iron Man game developed by EA Motive Studio (Star Wars: Squadrons, Dead Space Remake) in collaboration with Marvel Games. Still in pre-production with no release date or even platforms announced, it will take the form of a third-person action-adventure game, all with a single-player dimension. At the helm of the project: Olivier Proulx, who joined EA Motive after spending eight years at Eidos Montreal, notably working on Guardians of the Galaxy.

As announced in the communiquethis is the beginning of a “An exciting new collaboration between Marvel and Electronic Arts, with Iron Man the first of several new games”. A rumor spread at the end of July precisely heralded the development of an open world game Black Panther in EA’s new studio in Seattle.

And as is so often the case, this way of announcing a game that’s still a long way from release is a way of attracting new recruits: “Motive is actively recruiting to expand their team and you can check out their job postings on their website if you’re interested in helping them create the ultimate Iron Man video game.”can we read

As with Star Wars games, Marvel game projects multiply with multiple partners. The Disney subsidiary works with PlayStation (Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Marvel’s Wolverine), Take-Two (Marvel’s Midnight Suns), Skydance New Media (an action game that brings together Black Panther, Captain America and two other unknown heroes), Nuverse ( Marvel’s Snap) or even Niantic (Marvel World of Heroes).

Charts Europe: Saints Row preceded by … GTA 5

Since its debut in 2006, the Saints Row series has evolved in the shadow of the GTA juggernaut. Still developed by Volition, it made its big comeback on August 23 with a reboot simply titled Saints Row. Its publisher Deep Silver hasn’t published any official sales figures yet, but the title is impressive 2nd place in the ranking of the best European sales in August … behind the eternal GTA 5. The latter was the best-selling download title of the month Nintendo Switch Sports dominated physical sales.

A total of 3.2 million games were sold across European stores in what was a particularly quiet month for major releases, dropping sales by 12.4% compared to the same period in 2021. The only other change in the top 20 is Two Point Campus (16th). For its part, Spider-Man Remastered has made a good comeback (6th place) thanks to the release of its PC version on August 12th. The same goes for Gran Turismo 7 (5th), which doubled its sales compared to July thanks to promotions and improved PS5 inventory.

The 20 best sales in August in Europe

• Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
• Saints Row (Deep Silver)
• FIFA 22 (EA)
• F1 22 (EA/Codemasters)
• Grand Touring 7 (Sony)
• Spider-Man Remastered (Sony)
• Nintendo Switch Sport (Nintendo)*
• Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)*
• Horizon: Forbidden West (Sony)
• LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Warner Bros.)
• Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft)
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
• The Sims 4 (EA)
• Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Mojang/Nintendo)
• Disgraced (Bethesda)
• Two Point Campus (Sega)
• Elden Ring (Bandai Namco)
• Grand Theft Auto Online (Rockstar)
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Nintendo)*
• Mario Strikers: Battle League Football (Nintendo)*

.* Download sales are not counted

US charts: Madden NFL 23 dominates, Marvel’s Spider-Man reappears

The United States Video Game Industry Report for August was also unveiled by NPD faction, and the sales ranking has some peculiarities compared to Europe. The first is obviously the presence of Madden NFL 23 at the top. Released on 08/19. the American football simulation is already the fifth biggest success of the year in the land of Uncle Sam. This is the 23rd year in a row that a Madden NFL game has been the best-selling game in its month of release.

The rest of the top 5 is made up in order Saints Row, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Elden Ring and MultiVersus. Unfortunately, the NPD Group doesn’t provide any further data on the launch of Saints Row (compared to previous works, for example), but the institute underscores the performance of Spider-Man, which has climbed from 81st in July’s ranking to 3rd in August. The PC port of the old PlayStation exclusive was also the bestseller of the month on Steam

“God of War had risen from number 146 on the charts in December 2021 to number 5 in January 2022 with the launch of its PC version. Days Gone had also had a big surge with its PC release, climbing to number 20 on the 2021 charts in May, up from number 247 in April 2021. The PC has been a standout platform for Sony, not only in selling its PC versions but also because of the halo effect that launches have on the licenses involved.”notes Mat Piscatella of the NPD Group.

According to the analyst, the key takeaway from this monthly report is that player spending has returned to 2020 levels, with $4.10 billion generated in August (vs. $4.07 billion in August 2020). “This is a big positive change from the previous market trend. The improved supply of the latest consoles has helped a lot.”, he explains. The PS5 was the best-selling console in August, both in terms of number of units sold and value. Since the beginning of the year, the Nintendo Switch has sold the most units, while the PS5 is number one in terms of revenue. Finally, Sony’s latest devices, like Microsoft’s, saw a double-digit percentage increase in sales year-over-year.

The 20 best August sales in the United States

Briefly in the news

• SELL has announced the best physical sales in France for the week of September 5-11, marked by the releases of Splatoon 3 and NBA 2K23. And it’s the Switch exclusive that takes the lead, followed by the basketball game in 2nd and 3rd place thanks to the PS5 and PS4 versions. The Last of Us Part I is fourth, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe closes out the top five.
• The Trails of The Legend of Heroes series of 14 titles has surpassed 7 million sales.
• Valve has launched a new section of Steam that presents the current bestsellers and the most popular games in a clearer and more comprehensive way. You can access it by following this link

Our other business articles of the week