Marvel MMO officially put to rest

by Chris Chester Feb 11th 2008 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Business models, Interviews, New titles, Marvel Universe Online

I have to confess, I had been holding out hope over the last couple months that the rumors circulating of Marvel Universe Online's imminent cancellation would prove to be unfounded. The very idea of a Marvel-endorsed super-hero game being developed by the guys at Cryptic to be released on the Xbox 360 platform was almost too much for my fanboy heart to handle. Alas, it was not to be. Steven Totilo of MTV's multiplayer blog sat down with Microsoft's Shane Kim to talk, among other things, about the cancellation.

Kim first confirmed that the cancellation rumor was true, and stressed that the decision to cease development was amicable on all sides. He cited the competitiveness of the MMO market as the primary reason for cancellation. Evidently, Microsoft felt that they couldn't make a sufficient profit to justify the costs of development using a traditional subscription-based model. He also said the game was too far along in development to switch to another business model, like an ad-supported or RMT model. Perhaps the only silver lining in this story is that Cryptic is now free to develop new IPs. Those, of course, will have to wait until Cryptic's media blackout ends.

Tags: breaking, cancellation, cryptic, cryptic-studios, marvel-universe-online, mtv, multiplayer-blog, muo, shane-kim, xbox-360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Eli Shayotovich said on 1:26PM 2-11-2008

WOW! That's huge news. Cryptic really got screwed on this. First they sell off the CoX IP to NCsoft (good news for CoX) in what one would think an effort to focus all they had on the Marvel MMO. Then BOOM! Hope this doesn't force them to close shop.

Arabica said on 1:56PM 2-11-2008

I love the spin. No, no of course there wasn't anything wrong with the development. They just decided to stop. Uh, for no reason.

I seriously doubt that CoX is that dominant. Sure, it's the most popular super hero type MMO out there...since it's the only super hero MMO. I mean, I can remember ONE super hero game franchise video game and that was a single player game from years ago. Could they not find one decent way to innovate? At all? That's it, the entire industry is good for only one super hero game even with Marvel IP at it's back?

Wow. That's just sad. I didn't care about a Marvel MMO; I just think the almost total lack of treatment using the super hero genre is absolutely appalling.

Lemmo said on 2:08PM 2-11-2008

I don't think CoX is such a dominant force that there couldn't be another superhero MMO, but one would really have to break the mold to make a better superhero MMO.

Though, I think people underestimate CoX's staying power. This last weekend, there more more concurrent players logged into the game than ever before. Even more than at launch. Two servers reached max capacity.

Eli Shayotovich said on 2:21PM 2-11-2008

Yep. Lemmo is right. Having been a long time CoX Player (since beta), I haven't seen it this busy in some time. Sure, it was Double XP weekend, but that just means there are that many players out there willing to support the game.

However, I also think there's room for others in the genre. Just look at how many fantasy based MMOs there are. It's sad to see the demise of the Marvel MMO. No offense to the Microsoft fanboys out there, but that was a lame excuse they gave in canning this. Microsoft has been kind of on the ropes of late. I'm talking primarily about things associated with Vista, Games for Windows branding, and Live for the PC.

The DC MMO may also be vaporware.

Dass said on 7:51PM 2-11-2008

The main reason for terminating the project, was the fact that the MMO market is too competitive, and a sufficient profit could not be made from the traditional subscription-based model the game followed. huh yeah Microsoft can not Handel a competitive market they like to buy up the ones that stand in there way! :D

But how is this a competitive MMO market, so far I known this was the only MMO for xbox360 planned :D