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Hired as Marvel's vice president of games in May 2014, Jay Ong's first challenge was to discover why Marvel's box office success hadn't translated to games.
On the Marvel side, there had been games that were beloved well before I got there. Marvel vs. Capcom had its fan base. Ultimate Alliance had its fan base. They both were really high-quality games that were made for the fans.
What he needed was a publishing partner who hadn't adopted the "crappy licensed games" mentality. He needed a company with an eye for long-term investments, one with a vested interest that would benefit from building a franchise. That partner would need to have a deep pool of talent, commitment to quality, and inexhaustibly deep pockets. There were three companies that fit that description. One of them, Nintendo, mostly developed games based on its own intellectual properties.
Being from console first-party in my past, I pinged both sides, both Xbox and PlayStation, and said, "We don't have any big console deals with anyone right now. What would you like to do?" Microsoft's strategy was to focus on their own IP. They passed.
I sat down with these two execs from PlayStation third-party, Adam Boyes and John Drake, in August 2014, in a conference room in Burbank. I said, "We have a dream that this is possible, that we could beat Arkham and have one game at least and maybe multiple games that could drive adoption of your platform."
Sony turned the project over to Insomniac Games,*18 an independent studio at the time, but one of Sony's most important partners. Insomniac had a long list of hits that were published under the Sony label—Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, Resistance: Fall of Man, and most recently Sunset Overdrive.*19
Insomniac was an obvious choice for the project. As a studio, Insomniac had an impeccable record as both a designer of hit games and a reliable partner for Sony. Another plus, one of the studio's most recent games, Sunset Overdrive, incorporated a fast-paced, highly acrobatic style of combat that was equal parts parkour, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and Call of Duty, a very Spider-Man style of fighting that involved swinging and grinding over cities while facing multiple enemies.
Insomniac's ability to create games based on already existing intellectual property may have caused some concern. Historically, the studio created IP rather than building off of other companies' ideas. In truth, other companies adapted Insomniac's IP.*20
When we heard of the opportunity, thanks to Connie [Sony Interactive Entertainment vice president of product development Connie Booth] at Sony, it was a real surprise for me because up until that point we had been working on our own IP and hadn't really contemplated working on existing franchises.
Sony's participation in this project would be anything but passive. Including marketing, the budget for franchise-building games like Marvel's Spider-Man routinely exceeded $100 million. With so much money and prestige on the line, Sony Interactive Entertainment assigned senior director Grady Hunt and PS4 designer Mark Cerny to consult on the project. Both men had worked as Sony consultants with Insomniac on early projects as well.
The three-way collaboration between Insomniac, Marvel, and Sony was a success. Having partnered with Insomniac many times throughout the PlayStation and PS2 eras, Sony executives had confidence in the studio's technical and game design savvy. For their part, studio founder Ted Price and his fellow "Insomniacs" understood how to work with Sony as well. Having worked in different industries serving a mostly similar audience, Price's Insomniacs had a natural affinity with their Marvel counterparts as well.
Very early on, we knew that there was a great chemistry between us and our compatriots at Marvel. A lot of that came from being able to learn more about the Marvel universe from those who were really experts in it…guys like Bill Rosemann [executive creative director, Marvel Games]. At the same time, the Marvel team was fantastic in trusting us to come up with a new story…to come up with a new take on Peter Parker, and to explore the mechanics of what Spider-Man could be in a modern game.
Marvel's Spider-Man was indeed a worthy rival for the Arkham games. Breaking Spider-Man into the top tier of games wasn't only a question of money and technology; it was a question of finding a team with a grand vision. Insomniac wanted to create an iconic game for an iconic superhero. Marvel's active participation ensured a new level of authenticity. Wanting to create a PlayStation-exclusive franchise, Sony not only lent Marvel's Spider-Man a gigantic marketing budget, the console giant also offered technical support from start to finish.
When it came to Spider-Man, Activision wasn't prepared to compete against games like Batman: Arkham Asylum. Sony was. To date, the Arkham games and Marvel's Spider-Man are unrivaled among superhero games for sales, with a steep drop to the next tier down. In 2020, as Sony prepared to release PlayStation 5, the exclusive game headlining that release was Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Marvel's Spider-Man was the first time that Marvel proper realized that games as a medium could drive the brand…could drive "brand affinity," as we call it.
Marvel decided to approach Activision about terminating the contract early. As they negotiated the request, Ong explained that Spider-Man needed new talent, a bigger budget, and fresh eyes. We finally negotiated a deal for them to walk away. It was a mutually beneficial deal. When we shook hands on it, they asked, "So what are you going to do with this IP after you get it back?"
I said, "I'm going to find a better home for it."
They replied, "Good luck finding your unicorn."
One major reason this vote happened was poor treatment of the workers by Activision Blizzard in 2021, prompting a strike that lasted weeks and ended following a decision to hold a vote about forming a union and entering negotiations with Activision Blizzard over a contract. All the while, Activision Blizzard was dealing with the fallout from the state of California filing a lawsuit against the company after investigating its toxic workplace culture.
In recent months, Raven Software workers accused the publisher of curiously shifting staff around to thwart organizing, and just today, Bloomberg reported that US labor board prosecutors “determined Activision Blizzard illegally threatened staff and enforced a social media policy that conflicts with workers’ collective action rights.” An Activision spokesperson told Bloomberg the “the allegations are false.”
capcom hat in der nacht eine homepage für das 10 jährige von dragon's dogma online gestellt.
man könnte ja jetzt wild spekulieren, aber nachdem wir mittlerweile 2 handfeste leaks bezüglich eines nachfolgers hatten (der große capcom leak von november 2020 und der nvidia geforce now leak von september 2021) ist es eben nur eine frage der zeit, bis sie es offiziell ankündigen.
As we look to the future
laut kotaku arbeiten hanger 13 an einem neuen mafia ableger. dieses mal soll es sich dabei um ein prequel handeln.
Hangar 13 Bosses Leave, New Mafia In Development
LucasArts veteran Haden Blackman leaves the troubled 2K studio with Mafia 4 early in developmentkotaku.com
nach dem sehr guten remake zu mafia hab ich ja immer noch bock auf einen mafia 2 rerun und 3 wollte ich eigentlich auch nochmal eine chance geben.
So now, Guilbert says Dontnod wants to be "as independent as possible," and has formed publishing and marketing teams explicitly for that purpose. The studio currently has multiple games in its pipeline -- one a co-production with Focus Home Interactive, and another Guilbert says is being developed with the support of a major publisher. But Dontnod still has at least four more titles in development that he expects will all be self-published.