On Monday, developer Crystal Dynamics announced that Spider-Man will be coming to Marvel’s Avengers sometime next year, but only on PS4 and PS5. Fans were understandably upset. Now, studio co-head Scot Amos has explained the reasoning behind the exclusivity deal. Kinda. Not really.
Amos could have just dodged the issue entirely by saying something like “we don’t comment on the details of business deals with our hardware partners.” Instead, Amos decided to go for it in an interview with ComicBook during a media roundtable earlier this week, and it is truly something to behold:
So the beauty of Spider-Man, and what Spider-Man represents as a character, and as a world is…again, it comes back to the relationship with PlayStation and Marvel. We happened to be…once you can execute and deliver, when it comes down to choices of where and what Spider-Man can be, that’s a relationship question that PlayStation absolutely has the rights to, that as you guys know, with Sony’s ownership there, and Marvel with Sony saying, ‘Hey, this is something we can do. This is something we can do on this platform.’
What?
And so, what we do as creators is say, ‘This is an opportunity that we can make something unique, and fun, and awesome that we all…you just talked about Black Widow, and to be able to have that experience. So we love the idea of being able to bring this character to the PlayStation players.
And the coup de grâce:
But I really do think people will look at this and say, ‘Yeah, ok, we get that, we can understand the business behind that’, but in general, we’re making this game for everybody.
Nailed it.
More About Marvel’s Avengers:
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Spider-Man Will Be A PlayStation Exclusive Character For Marvel’s Avengers, Reminding Us All How Much Console-Exclusive DLC Sucks
In a move already being roundly criticised on social media, Crystal Dynamics’ Jeff Adams revealed today that Spider-Man will be available as a free update for PlayStation players of this September’s Marvel’s Avengers game in “early 2021.” PC and Xbox One players, apparently, won’t get to play as him.
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Okay. From reading that it appears that Crystal Dynamics is under the impression that Sony has the rights to Spider-Man as a Playstation. So the armchair experts that have been saying thats not the case now have an opportunity to tell the Devs that they’re wrong!
He obviously wasn’t sure on how to say it but he’s basically confirmed what many of us guessed about Sony having the rights.
Yep. Sony has the rights to Spider-Man when it comes to movies and video games. With Spider-Man (the video game) being Playstation exclusive, it makes sense that Sony would enforce their rights when it comes to a third-party game that wants to use the IP that they own the rights for. It’s legal mumbo-jumbo 101.
Except that Sony don’t.
https://screenrant.com/spider-man-playstation-exclusive-rights-marvel-sony-insomniac/#:~:text=Although%20Sony%20now%20owns%20Insomniac,the%20superhero%20this%20entire%20time.
Nice speculation article you’re citing there.
If you did more than click the first result on a Google search you’d find that Sony purchases all third party media rights for Spider-Man years ago. It’s only been since the Disney buy-out of Marvel that Sony has been pushing their holding of the rights. Since Spider-Man was a huge hit, they don’t want to have other companies to use the character and devalue the brand. It’s the same thing that leads to Sony vs Disney when it comes to movie usage too.
Except that Spider-man (and multiple other Spider-verse characters) was in Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the Switch, which Sony had nothing to do with…
Ridley Scott is running Crystal Dynamics now?
For those playing at home, Ridley Scott responding to a question about making Deckard explicitly a replicant in the Final Cut version of Blade Runner:
“Oh, it was always my thesis theory. It was one or two people who were relevant were… I can’t remember if Hampton agreed with me or not. But I remember someone had said, “Well, isn’t it corny?” I said, “Listen, I’ll be the best f#@king judge of that. I’m the director, okay?” So, and that, you learn — you know, by then I’m 44, so I’m no f#@king chicken. I’m a very experienced director from commercials and The Duellists and Alien. So, I’m able to, you know, answer that with confidence at the time, and say, “You know, back off, it’s what it’s gonna be.” Harrison, he was never — I don’t remember, actually. I think Harrison was going, “Uh, I don’t know about that.” I said, “But you have to be, because Gaff, who leaves a trail of origami everywhere, will leave you a little piece of origami at the end of the movie to say, ‘I’ve been here, I left her alive, and I can’t resist letting you know what’s in your most private thoughts when you get drunk is a f#@king unicorn!’” Right? So, I love Beavis and Butthead, so what should follow that is “Duh.” So now it will be revealed [in the sequel], one way or the other.”
It’s not just me that thinks what he said was borderline incomprehensible, right?
Nope. “This is an opportunity that we can make something unique, and fun, and awesome that we all…” guessing he was gonna say is all experience before he realised actually no, only some people.
“We’re making this game for everyone” but not 100% of everyone.
The way he words it is like creating Spiderman on a different platform is an impossible task
This statement will be of great comfort to my autistic Xbox owning son who’s a massive Spider-Man fan.