Only a few short hours ago, it was announced that Marvel Universe Online was being discontinued. In a recent interview, Shane Kim, VP of Microsoft Game Studios, gave the official confirmation, and now eagerly awaiting comic book fans now have to sit back and watch as the truth behind the cancellation begins to unfold. Despite Mr. Kim's discussion on wanting to discontinue the game due to the lack of a flexible payment model behind the game, Microsoft's track record with MMORPGs is far from spotless. Cody "Micajah" Bye explores the discontinuation of the comic book based game in his editorial, "The Demise of Marvel Universe Online".
Quote:
Microsoft doesn’t have a tremendously solid track record when it comes to massively multiplayer games. From their first efforts with Asheron’s Call, Microsoft has either canceled or sold off every single massively multiplayer game that they’ve touched. And it’s a fairly extensive list: Asheron’s Call, Asheron’s Call II, Mythica, True Fantasy Live Online, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. For many individuals, the Marvel Universe Online cancellation will serve as another reminder of the massive games that Microsoft decided to drop before their time.
With all the information presented for you, what do you make of the demise of Marvel Universe Online? Do you think it was due to poor design? Fear of WoW? Or something else? Voice your opinion here!
That's 2 MMOG's that have been at the minimum "temporarily scrapped" this year, and of course they're the only two I really had any significant interest in. First Star Trek, now Marvel.
I think this re-emphisises how hard these games really are to make and be sucessful. Especialy with all the MMO's in production at the moment we will see a huge influx of games in the next few years and I believe Microsoft feels they are a little too late to rake in an easy profit like Blizzard has.
I'll pretend I didn't find the other thread you started on this topic and post there first ...
First off I'd say that Microsoft should have been 100% content to develop / publish an MMO following the very western subscription-based model. As things currently stand, their games division is seeing the vast majority of it's income from that market already.
One of the 'what ifs' that come to mind goes something like this: Did Microsoft decide, X months after full development had been under way, that they wanted the game to be released as a 360 title and then realizing it would mean a full reboot of the project decide it wasn't worth the investment? Personally I don't buy the 'there's only one successful subscription-based MMO' reasoning... when the XBox launched there was only one successful console on the market, even more true when the 360 launched since the PS2 still dominates all sales-to-date charts... yet they went ahead and dumped millions into both of those consoles for a modest return on investment at best.
Following the logic of that reasoning, the same could hold true for every single current gaming genre across all platforms. Stop making movies or television shows since they can't all be successful. Cancel the internet since only a handful of companies actually profit from its existence. Stop sending your children to school since there's already been students with a 4.0 grade average...
I'll pretend I didn't find the other thread you started on this topic and post there first ...
First off I'd say that Microsoft should have been 100% content to develop / publish an MMO following the very western subscription-based model. As things currently stand, their games division is seeing the vast majority of it's income from that market already.
One of the 'what ifs' that come to mind goes something like this: Did Microsoft decide, X months after full development had been under way, that they wanted the game to be released as a 360 title and then realizing it would mean a full reboot of the project decide it wasn't worth the investment? Personally I don't buy the 'there's only one successful subscription-based MMO' reasoning... when the XBox launched there was only one successful console on the market, even more true when the 360 launched since the PS2 still dominates all sales-to-date charts... yet they went ahead and dumped millions into both of those consoles for a modest return on investment at best.
Following the logic of that reasoning, the same could hold true for every single current gaming genre across all platforms. Stop making movies or television shows since they can't all be successful. Cancel the internet since only a handful of companies actually profit from its existence. Stop sending your children to school since there's already been students with a 4.0 grade average...
Yeah - I found MS's logic in this to be extremely.....shady. To me it seems like an out for them....either they didn't want to talk bad about Cryptic or they simply got cold feet.
To me, it's more of the smoke-and-mirrors that's been happening lately.
I tried CoH/CoV and it was fun, just not completely my cup of tea.
I would have been willing to try MUO too.
Meh, not really much of a surprise since everyone wants to be the next WoW but when the cost, and risks, involved sinks in their first instinct is to bail out.
Well at least the guys who do the CGI teasers for these soon to be canceled MMO's are getting plenty of business.
I tried CoH/CoV and it was fun, just not completely my cup of tea.
I would have been willing to try MUO too.
Meh, not really much of a surprise since everyone wants to be the next WoW but when the cost, and risks, involved sinks in their first instinct is to bail out.
Well at least the guys who do the CGI teasers for these soon to be canceled MMO's are getting plenty of business.
Yeah but it's not like MS hasn't done this sort of thing before. MUO would have been their sixth MMO project that they pulled out on.
The Demise of Marvel Universe Online
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