IGN gave Marvel's Avengers a 7. Square Enix shut it down and wrote off the entire project.

Let's run the numbers. IGN: 7 out of 10. Steam concurrent players at shutdown: 17. That's not a typo. Seventeen human beings. If you round that to the nearest hundred, you get zero. A 7/10 game that rounds to zero players. The math ain't mathing.

The review calls the live service 'not-yet-proven.' That's like calling the Titanic 'not-yet-sunk' while the band is already playing. Square Enix would go on to report that their entire HD Games segment posted an extraordinary loss, with Marvel's Avengers cited by name as the primary offender. They didn't just lose money — they lost enough money to make Final Fantasy XVI's budget look like a rounding error.

Here's where the statistical model collapses entirely. IGN's 7/10 places Marvel's Avengers in the 'good' tier. Their own scoring guide defines 7 as 'good — a game that may not innovate or be overly memorable, but provides fun while it lasts.' It lasted 3 years. The player count was in double digits for most of them. By that logic, my local DMV also provides fun while it lasts — there are more people in the waiting room.

The review dedicates exactly one paragraph to the live-service concerns and four paragraphs to the campaign, which clocked in at approximately 10 hours. That's 40% of the review covering 10% of the intended experience. If I submitted that ratio on a stats exam, I'd fail. The review also awarded full marks for graphics and sound while noting 'bugs and crashes' in the same sentence. That's like giving a restaurant 5 stars for ambiance while mentioning the kitchen is on fire.

Final calculation: IGN's 7/10 converted to the Square Enix financial reality scale equals approximately -$200,000,000/10. The standard deviation between the review score and the market outcome is so large it needs its own zip code. Filed under: when your scoring rubric and reality operate in different dimensions.