In a move that will surely bum out the few people playing it, Disney is canning their Diablo style, super-hero based MMO, Marvel Heroes on the last day of the year. For those of you that just plunked down good money for Daredevil or Spider-Gwen, your investment will soon be for naught. With a story penned by Brian Michael Bendis (who is jumping ship for DC!), this could have really been something. As it is, it isn't terrible, just not amazing. But soon, it won't be anything at all.
In an email from Marvel (who is owned by Disney), they discussed ending their partnership with Gazillion Entertainment, the people behind the game.
“We regret to inform our Marvel Heroes fans that we have ended our relationship with Gazillion Entertainment, and that the Marvel Heroes games will be shut down. We would like to sincerely thank the players who joined the Marvel Heroes community, and will provide any further updates as they become available.”
Rumors had been swirling about the game's imminent demise due to reports that the staff was being slashed (lay-offs) and important members of the team weren't showing up to work. Kotaku reported that Jeff Donias, the game's former creative director had this to say about the layoffs:
“[The lay-offs] would definitely not be the fault of the internal men and women who actually worked on the game itself or served the customers. . . It was a real thing that people didn’t see their families as much as they should, or sacrificed their health to work an 80-hour week when an important patch deadline was looming. . . The patch release schedule, especially when PC was the main focus, was aggressively insane.”
The game had received middling to negative reviews, but I hate to see it die anyways. This could have been a great game, but maybe killing it will open the door for something even better. At least we have a new Star Wars coming soon...
nice