Let's see, so they can't make as much money as WoW, so not worth it. Right then.

This could totally fly, and totally be awesome. Start with City of Heroes style character customization. Then for powers, use a system like the old TSR Marvel Super Heroes tabletop RPG. Run events constantly. Bank heists, muggings, plots to take over the world, what have you. It would print money. It would at least print my money, and I hate MMOs.

Karlott

Ironman using the High Evolutionary's lower half? Charming. Hulk wearing Galactus' purple skirt? Cheeky.

Knowing who the High Evolutionary is? Rather sad.

cheeses

Marvel Zombies pic FTW. The insane looking zombie teeth on our favorite Marvel characters never fails to illicit a giggle from me.

XvCowboyvX

This sucks, what am I supposed to do if I want to play a Cryptic-made MMO in which I can be a superhero now?

Azrael

There's no way it would have worked anyway. Did they expect to have a million Spider-Men running around at time?

justhesh

+1 for marvel zombies reference
-10 for destroying what couldve been a lotta fun for us fanboys because, waaaah, we wont get WoW #'s. neither did PSO, you cunts, and it was great fun.

TheIrishNinja

I really can't believe that WOW is so god damn successful that there's no room left on the internets for a different type of MMO.

I think MS forgot about all the people out there who like MMORPGs, but aren't playing WoW.

Insomnia Bob

@Witzbold: Gotta love Marvel Zombies!

mind in rewind

There's just something disturbing about the idea of a zombie Thanos... I mean I know he worships Death, but becoming a zombie... I guess I just hoped somebody would put an end to the Marvel Zombie madness eventually!

Really, as great as a read as the Marvel Zombie original series was (haven't read much of the other materials), I can't help but feel immeasurably saddened by it... They're the good guys! They are supposed to win!!

gramblor

All those lamenting the loss of theis game, please ask yourselves, "What would this game have been like?" and then hang your head in shame. How do you even conceivably make this game? The idea was to let players play Marvel Superheroes in an MMO. Ok, so, I call Wolverine. Am I the only Wolverine running around or does everyone get the chance to pick him? So what there 2000 Wolverines running around a server? But if I'm the only Wolverine on the server, can you imagine my asking price for my account. $5000 sounds appropriate. Or I guess Cryptic could have gone the easy route and just built a "Marvel flavored" version of City of Heroes; fight Marvel Villians, you get missions from Marvel heroes, etc. Anyway you look at it, there is no workable game concept for this. It was doomed from the begining.

worsethannormal

Looks like zombie Mahvel.
Oh he got da zombie sent'nel.

Dudemeister

Thats flat out bull shit and I hope Marvel takes their video game licensee they gave Microsoft since its clear they had no plans on making this game a bunch of worthless hot air shit . No wonder Sony is going to slaughter them this year. This is one reason why I am glad I have a PS3 now .

ExtremeOne316

The way the current gaming world is today is really sad, you can see the industry almost grinding to a halt, it is having record number years but compared to other industries it really isn't impressive. Because the industry is making money so fast people aren't trying to make money off of making games, they are trying to make money off of franchising. People are jumping on the band wagon because they believe gamers to be dumb, and sheepish.

The industry is stagnating and it seems like nobody wants to say or do anything, about it. To openly say things like "We didn't produce for that system because it wouldn't port easily." or "We don't want to create a game because we can't make as much money as another game." all it shows is that they have given up on getting money from creation and have settled for what is the easiest thing to do. Seriously that won't make money for long with the type of fanbase games are attracting and have.

zsavior

When he says "one that is successful" the "one" is World of Warcraft. He means one MMO. No other MMO's are profitable. I think it's because WOW is deep enough to fill up all of your time, everyone knows that it's the best and most populous MMO; and most people can't afford to pay a $20 per month fee for more than one game.

GOLD5

They canned it because they realised WoW is the most succesful,and no other MMO's come even close? Why didn't they just reach that conclusion before they even started? Hell,I could have told them not to bother.

kidnicky

Actual real reason for MS not getting into MMOs: They heart X-Box. Throwing all that $ at an MMO for the PC just doesn't make sense when they've already got a closed-system console unit and can develop Halo to the Nth power for it and make more $ than an MMO that isn't WoW ever would.
And Sony will come to the same conclusion regarding a PC-based DC MMO.
Oh, and BUDDY_DOQ is absolutely right above about how the IP for this kind of thing should be working moving forward. Put these in smaller environments, foster community, and that would be massively successful with licensed characters.

biffpow

@LeChuck: Dude, seriously? That is your rationale? That they still exist therefore they must not be that bad? You can take the sales of all of those games, across all platforms and it won't even equal Blue Dragon's sales. Does that mean Blue Dragon is a blockbuster? I made the mistake of playing FF11 on the PC, nothing special.

Hengst2404

This was one of the smartest decisions that MGS has made yet (the TFL cancellation was as well). Why?

Because, as I've said many times before, MMO's are the dot.coms of today. Everyone wants one after WoW's success, but, as MGS realized, its extremely hard to repeat that success. Its particularly hard considering the typical life cycle of a console. MMO's need to run like 4-5 years at least, so if one isn't released early enough in a consoles life, then its going to be hard to continue to support deep into the life of the next console (this is why I think TFL was cancelled).

Well, that's my piece.

DARTH_TIGRIS

@bluestreak108: Agreed completely. What some companies need to realize is that even though WoW is massive, does not mean their game cannot be successful. I guarantee there are many MMO's that were canned or taken back to the drawing board after seeing what WoW turned out to be.

@Irenicus-the one and only: Hehe, me too. I had to finally quit when I noticed the hours I was pouring into the game due to my addiction.

R3load

Yeah I think they might have meant city of heroes. Since that one is already out and doing fairly well it would be kind of pointless to have another super hero mmo.

FullMetalJacket85

Considering they took the time to port FFXI + all the expansion packs to the 360 (a game which racks in less money than WoW regardless of being on 3 different platforms), I think this is just proof that they never wanted it in the first place (they just didn't want Sony to have control over both DC and Marvel IPs).

- Tony R.

DeeBG

So I guess re-creating City of Heroes was a bad idea after all.

kemicon

I don't think that many people were anticipating this (personally, I just don't like MMOs), but that is a terrible reason to cancel a game really.

Samos42

@Hengst2404: As far as I know Everquest Online Adventures, FF 11, and PSU (not really an MMO but close enough) are the only MMOs that have ever been released on console. And since all of them are still running (even EQOA which should've died out long ago) they must not have sucked that much.

LeChuck

Wow, yeah I mean grr!!!! Bad MS, how foolish of you to cancel your MMO. After all lot at all of the successful console MMOs out there today. FF11 online and Phantasy Star and....well there is also.... and finally let's not forget the classic.......

Hmm MMORPG pretty much suck on consoles. I thin k MS did us a favor here.

Hengst2404

@Ashurahori: They made me cry );

Father ColdCuts

@R3load:Is that because you say so? Personally I think WoW is the best MMO up and running.

I think what he means is that it's success is beyond the norm for any MMO. The second place MMO out there isn't even on the same page as WoW, the gap is ludicrous.
Companies look at that gap and get scared, yeah, because it's largely impossible to jump through force of checkbook alone. Companies are used to buying a successful game; paying for top notch graphics, state-of-the-art physics and the like. WoW has none of that and they're smoking everybody.
WoW will be defeated when Blizzard is bored with it, or when they screw up royaly (WoW 2 might bone them if they aren't smart about it).
Potential MMOs need to take the Wii approach; do something different and don't fight the giant on the giant's terms. Hell, don't even fight the giant! Don't try to beat WoW, just make a fun game. Then when the giant sees your success and tries to do what you're doing, it trips and loses.

bluestreak108

@Chromeo: PS3 will be the console of choice for the MMOs in my opinion.

Father ColdCuts

Marvel Zombies pic = Made my day.

Ashurahori

@Irenicus-the one and only:

I meant more that I felt the rug was pulled out from under me than trying to compare the two -- they pretty fundamentally changed the experience for my class in the update (I was, I believe, level 34), and added all these imperative quests to the beginning of your levelling, so I would've been forced to go back to the beginning areas to do busy quests for no xp and crappy rewards. But yeah, the Jedi thing was an absolute debacle.

Strangelove

I know that most people will disagree with me buuuut...

...I was really looking forward to an MMO on the Xbox 360. Well, not counting FFXI, which I quit years ago due to the fact that I was becoming more Hume than Human every day I played it. And PSO, which is pretty much doomed.

City of Heroes for the 360! Someone make it happen!!!

Chromeo

@KnightRider: City of Heroes already had the answer. No you can't play as a signature character, but you have so many creative options, it not that bad. Also there are many opportunities to fight along sode them or against them.

mtheumer

So basically WoW is so successful it scared MS away from the market? Thats either really cool, really creepy, or a little of both. Props to Blizzard I guess? ;)

DaiMacculate

Ah, he is an idiot then, a well managed mmo can make around 40% profit with only 100,000 subscribers. city of heroese has stayed at around 140,000 for years now and according to their foremer lead dev, jack "statesman" emmett they were always well into the black. This isnt about subscribers, its about how microsoft hasnt a clue how to run an mmo. Idiot.

ryanfrost

Make no bones about it, Cryptic hoped to pull many of the Superhero crowd over to MUO and bought into the hype of had Marvel and Microsoft backing them, unfortunately, they got left holding the bag. Good thing ST:O fell into their lap. Or did it?

mtheumer

What the deuce?

I do see the potential problem with a MMO based on comics where you could play as a beloved hero.

*enters new area - "look, there are 1400 spidermans here too... so I thought I'd be original and be the Hulk. No one would ever pick him!"

KnightRider

"Yeah, so basically Kim explains that they had gone too far to change the pricing structure into something more likely to bring money in, such as item and transaction-based models, so they let the project die."

Is that explained more clearly in the interview? From the excerpt, I could only gather that Microsoft was fairly confident that they couldn't compete with World of Warcraft, and to be "successful", they would have to.

Or, perhaps I should read the interview before posting.

...

Maybe later.

Heliophage

I think they were going about the IP the wrong way anyway. Comic heroes don't need to be a sideshow in a MMORPG, but a 16~32 player Marvel City action game ala Crackdown/GTA wouldn't stay on the shelf. Set it up with a traditional join-game lobby, have a nice Marvel vs Capcom style character select screen, and tackle an epic co-op challenge in a very large modeled city with up to 32 other heroes. Lots fun with your favorite heroes, plenty of room for DLC, everybody wins. Best of all, nobody has to roll a dex-check to cast web-swing.

Buddy_DoQ

i wouldn't pay extra to play a game online. i'm already doing that with LIVE.

ruba-dub-dub

@R3load: Definatley one of the best, I would still play it if it wasn't for the addiction :P

Irenicus-the one and only

That's too bad really.

It makes me think about why Cryptic sold off their CoH/V IP rights to NcSoft a bit more now. I mean did Cryptic really buy into this Marvel MMO and then notice they weren't getting any responses from Microsoft and so they needed money for whatever reason and they sold Co* IP or was it for another reason altogether?

One may never know...

smd31

@Dreadfish: WoW SHOULDN'T have the insane number of subscribers that it does...

Is that because you say so? Personally I think WoW is the best MMO up and running.

R3load

@Strangelove: Not until you made jedi chars taking years to make and then have them all be a standard class anyone can make after 5minutes. But yeah, it sux, my mage being nerfed in WoW for a million years was not fun.

Irenicus-the one and only

One less reason to finally grab a 360. Luckily every other game that has me interested will hit the PC soon. Who knows, this might finally end up there too.

PokeSmot

Nice picture for the article. Marvel Zombies FTW!

Rebochan

I was pretty engaged with Lord of the Rings Online until an update completely nerfed my archer. Now I know what the Starwars Galaxies players were bitching about.

Strangelove

EverQuest was the biggest MMO when WoW was still in the making. Blizzard had the advantage of taking most of the complaints people had about EQ and MMOs in general, and tweaked it. Not to mention people were desperate to leave EQ for something new, and that new addiction was World of Warcraft.

Microsoft doesn't have the same opportunity.

waraling

@knulpm: there plan was to have you play as player created ones.

there was a huge Q&A thing about it on IGN like a year or more ago that answered a lot of questions.

i really wanted this to work out =(

presto117

I still miss the MMO that was suppose to come out for the old Xbox, True Fantasy :( MS...

Irenicus-the one and only

@Madeira: I know, how very dare me!

Tempestora

I wonder if MS thought they couldn't create a successful MMO on a console?

Interesting that they just decided cancel it.. Maybe they could have created the PC version?

exkon

@Dreadfish: SWG made money, but they got greedy and jealous and fucked it up. Many MMO's I think have proven that you can make an MMO and make profit even if not as good or successful as WoW. People don't stop making FPS games when Half life or Halo came.

Irenicus-the one and only

@Tempestora: Wait... are you... Hating on Halo? On the internets?!?

You provocateur, you!

Madeira

What the shit?! Nooooo! I was so looking forward to this! Now what do I have to live for? Dammit...

Skitzoap

I'm sad to see it go, only because I was curious on how they were going to work there plan where you play as actual Marvel characters and not player created ones.

knulpm

@iskew: M$ has shown on many occasions that they have no problem buying first place if it's cheaper than working for it.

jp182

Age of Conan anyone? Seriously, no one is asking for perfection, just a good MMO that is fun to play with our friends. Looks like it is back to waiting for Too Human and Sacred 2 to be released as no serious MMO is on the horizon again (and yes, I have seen the videos for Huxley and am not impressed).

Hiero Glyph

I guess in a way Microsoft "murdered" the Marvel MMO, in that they backed out before they could see if it would be able to compete with WoW.

JohnnytheFuture

Oh yeah, is this pretty much the deathblow to Sigil? Or had they already lost this..

kyosen

@Irenicus-the one and only: Wow is a freak happening. WoW SHOULDN'T have the insane number of subscribers that it does...but somehow it has this freakish number of people playing. MMOs are generally a lose lose situation when it comes to money.

Dreadfish

This just pisses me off! It's another example of some board room suite getting in the way of a potentially good game! Wan**rs! How could this have failed!? I'm sure the IP would have been dealt with in the highest regard and respect. This could have been amazing! Thank you, you pen pushing money grabbing kn*bs!

Amen!

Father ColdCuts

I guess all other FPS games should not be made because data shows that Halo 3 outsells everything else. That is hogwash. Typical.

ghnvt

I'd much rather see it canceled than be released with micro transactions. If you can't release a good solid MMO without a monthly fee and have to replace that with ads or the ability for people to buy gear or levels with cash, then get out of the fucking industry.

kyosen

@Witzbold: It shocked me too. I'm worries if i'll sleap tonight.I also might have "Red-Eye" tomorrow!

Father ColdCuts

As someone who collected marvel comics by the truckload as a kid, I'm glad this got shit canned before it was even shat out.

How would you make this work? I don't see it as possible inside the bounds of the lore in the Marvel universe (not to get technical or anything).

Seriously, stay dead.

Phunk

Regardless of everything else in the Article, the one thing that annoys me most (regadless of the lack of Mumorperger) Is the fact that everyone and sundry seems to think that the Halo 'Universe' is rich, and not, infact, a totally uninspired and cliched version of every lame Sci-Fi film ever, replete with Day-Glo Aliens and a Faceless, Boring and totally uninventive Protagonist...

Yay Marvel Zombies!

Tempestora

MMO's are the single worst thing to happen to gaming since, well, ever. Takes little skill and they can take your social life if you are not careful. On top of all of that they are usually pay to play. Glad one of these travesties are dead and gone before ever hitting stores. Just think of all the marriages and relationships saved, all the kids that will continue going to school, thank you M$.

Muisee

So, they either want to match/beat WoW or just say "fuck it" to anything that won't meet that exceptionally high bar.

NOTE: Regardless of whether or not you like WoW, I'm going on the "it has 10+ million accounts" bar, and not the "OMFG BEST MMO EVAR" bar.

The thing is, they can't just make, yet another, WoW clone. It has to be new and edgy, which is exceedingly difficult. Even Blizzard took their ideas from other MMOs (regardless what they would actually say in a press release).

Most things that come out that aren't WoW clones are lacking in some department, may that be gameplay, graphics (WoW doesn't have the best graphics, but they cover that up well with their very nice textures), or something else (not enough quests, terrible/no story, etc). Blizzard has found a happy medium between all of these making WoW great for casual gamers or hardcore ones.

Many developers today aren't trying to find that medium in their own way, but try to just shove all of their development into one thing or the other (usually graphics) and just seem to shove everything else to the side.

Eventually someone will come out with something to rival WoW, just like WoW came to rival EQ. WoW will die out, but it doesn't seem like that is going to be for a while.

I'm not saying that any developers need to just give up hope, but they need to start thinking "new and better" and not "let's take what works and make it our own."

Okay, rant over.

ArgentAngel

"There´s only ones sucessfull MMO" = "I´m not good enough to make money with MMO´s as my competitors are, cuz I suck at quality and marketing." = "low budget crappty game, but can´t make big profit from them. No no, i won´t make it into a huge budget thing because I´m a coward and don´t like to take risks since I don´t even understand what I´m into" = "It´s like trying to develop another Lord of the Ring´s alike movie movie attempt"

"GRRBAAWWRRRLLLLLLLL" - Chewbacca.

Wyld

It's amazing for me that they can't even see how their own PR backfired on this one. It sounds like they pulled the plug a long time ago. It's not as if when this project started that WoW wasn't already the king of that hill, so what changed? Perhaps it just became a money sink. But they can't possibly have screwed up a more apt and waiting IP. The depth of the IP Marvel handed them was more than enough to plum for ages as long as they could create compelling MMO gameplay and integration.

Which is probably the real rub here. If this thing really got it's plug pulled by suits who got cold feet, than this was never about making an interesting MMO. I wonder if it ever got far in development and if the artists and developers working on it are kicking themselves for investing in a project the suits apparently weren't convinced of from the start. Moreover, M$FT has rarely shown a public respect for intellectual work and is often content with letting early-funding die on the vine for the write-off. R&D is disposable. Heck, they'd rather buy Yahoo and clumsily integrate rather than continue and invest their own portal/social/ad initiatives.

Microsoft will eventually have a successful MMO- if they buy one. If one other than WoW ever becomes successful, rest assured M$FT will buy it if it's for sale. But generating one from within their purchased studios will not work with this executive attitude. They don't want second place and apparently aren't willing to work for it. Even if IP gold is handed to them.

iskew

DAMMIT EA!!

GIVE UP THE DAMN LICENSE SO CAPCOM CAN DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH IT ALREADY!!!

Knoxximus (360/PSN)

@Gray665: It is getting real sad, EvE Online and many other MMO's makes great profit and games even if they don't beat WoW. Maybe now we can all stop making FPS games too and just play cod 5, 6, 7, 8, 9...

Irenicus-the one and only

As a comics geek I am at once sad about this and glad it never came to pass. I am sad because I think as comic book movies seem to average out to OK I would like to see a well made game based on them. I am glad because I was worried the game would be complete crap.

With it scrapped MS needs to deal with Wizkids to make XBL versions of their games, especially HeroClix. A FFTactics style HeroClix game could be awesome, never mind Pirates and HaloClix

ElijahDProphet

It wouldn't of worked unless you would've liked running around in a world full of Spidermen and Wolverines. I'm sure that was more of a problem than just the influence of WoW.

Darkedge

Ha. All MMOs cower in the pressence of WoW. Honestly, everyone else should just give up.

Gray665

It would have been a waste of time, if they were going to do it, it should have been ready to go two years ago at the least.

Foxstar Sixtail

They should take a gamble. It's not like they don't have the cash to do it.

sUKi

Im more worried about how scary that picture is Mr. Fahey.

Witzbold

Wow, never even heard of this to get excited before it was canned. Sux.

Surlaw-the-Mai

Wait, wtf!!?? I thought they were still making it just as Sony got the DC comics licence, and they go and scrap it because they can't make as much profit as WoW? Thats fucking retarded (sorry for my language.)

This is sooo freaking dumb, this is even as bad as SOE and LA fucking up Star Wars galaxies because they made less profit then WoW...

New definition of an MMO in websters: Have to sell more then WoW!

Irenicus-the one and only

Thanks a lot, pricks.

Livid

It seems odd that this is being mourned and talked about with such reverence... I'd heard like one, maybe two rumors about it three years ago- then nothing. To think this was the 'big canceled title' that everyone was so worried about a while back seems funny. And a big relief.

GameChad

imho, i think he's lying. wow shows there is a large market. eventually wow players will move on to something different. blaming it on pricing structure is prolly just one problem used to cover up bigger reasons. most likely involving greed / control / egos.

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