Disney Severs Relationship With Gazillion, Marvel Heroes To Be Shut Down
Update: Gazillion has posted a message on the Marvel Heroes forums giving a shutdown date of Dec. 31. Real-money purchases appear to still be active -- possibly another sign that the shutdown notice came rather abruptly -- but they will be "removing real money purchases as soon as possible."
Original story: We've been talking about Gazillion's odd silence regarding Marvel Heroes for weeks now, and finally the (Thor's) hammer has fallen. Today Kotaku received a statement from Disney, the holder of the Marvel license, that serves as the death knell for the four-year-old 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."
No precise reason was given for the game's demise, though it's possibly related to the sexual harassment allegations levied against Gazillion CEO David Dohrmann, allegations that were attested to by former Gazillion employee Jeff "Doomsaw" Donais via Reddit. That said, one would think that the proper option in that case is to remove the offending party rather than blow the whole thing up, so either negotiations to do so went straight to hell or Dohrmann himself wielded so much power that he was unwilling to cede control of the company.
As of this moment, Marvel Heroes is still playable on Steam, but there's no indication as to how long that will remain the case. We've reached out to Gazillion for a statement regarding the cancellation of Marvel Heroes and will update this article if we learn anything more.
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Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.
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A simple search will show you that EA is working on a new "action oriented game", that might just be Marvel-related, so they may just not want any competition for their "Marvel Heroes"
Far too many games released in seconds & on a whim,
Far too many explosions of stupor on the mobile market & other game outlets.
Far to many one time game devs getting free cash for not finishing games just starting them.
Far to many instant buyers, buying because a button is easy to press or they found some money.
The game industry is in a turmoil of crap at the moment.
A tiny trickle of great games are developed. This makes their releases very hard to maintain for long periods of time because of the clutter of massive amounts of crap games.
My answer is
Stop releasing easy game design allowing joe blow to make crap games
Start making it a professional, secret, & elite game development environment again, & then there might be some peace & tranquility. Its not going to happen is it?
Its of course done & dusted as there is no way to stop this landslide now that every man & his dog is in it for a penny or quid, its shamefully unstoppable.
As with all thing in life there will be bubble that has to burst.