So what went wrong? Buck believes that one of the biggest problems was a "fundamental misunderstanding of who our audience was" among most, though not all, of the executive leadership.
Both Minecraft: Story Mode, and Guardians of the Galaxy were games where this misunderstanding were apparent, said Buck. The first two episodes of Minecraft: Story Mode were originally M-rated, and had to be rewritten; in this case, Buck said, it was fortunate as it was clearly misaligned with the younger target demographic of Minecraft.
With Guardians of the Galaxy, however, it was almost the exact opposite. Much like the source material, which the creative team studied extensively in order to try and capture the tone and feel of the universe, the original draft of the game was funnier and more "goofy", but that was all stripped out to lean into a darker, grittier feel, that was tonally off from the franchise.
"Our executive team insisted that what was popular about Guardians of the Galaxy, was darkness and violence, and sadness," said Buck. "And that people did not associate humour with that brand... So we redid the first two episodes to be less funny and more dark and more violent and more sad, and that's the game that shipped. And one of the biggest comments in editorial, was that it felt very off-tone for Guardians of the Galaxy and wasn't very funny. And we were like 'we know'."