The free-to-play game Marvel Heroes Omega (for PC/Mac, PS4, and XBone) has officially had all services permanently discontinued and servers shut down effective today. This is following Disney's recent decision to cut ties with the game's developer, Gazillion Entertainment, last week on Nov. 15th. The official statement from Disney read: "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."

As a result of the news, Gazillion issued an official statement on their forums saying that "The Marvel Heroes servers will stay on until Dec 31, 2017, and we’ll be removing real money purchases as soon as possible. Players will be able to play the game entirely for free once this sunset period commences. We will share the exact date things go completely free as soon as we can", but on Nov. 22nd, Thanksgiving eve, their entire staff were laid off and the game's closure was abruptly bumped up to today, the 24th. Two employees of Gazillion, Anthony Gallegos and Andrew Hair, had taken to twitter on Nov. 22nd to report that none of the developers are receiving severance or PTO payouts, with coverage for medical insurance ending in just 8 days. The announcement to close the game was made by the devs through their official Discord server on the 22nd.

This was a game with a free-to-play model, so microtransactions were the core source of revenue for the company. With the sudden closure of the game, players have begun to request refunds for content, on which some have paid upwards of $400. Unfortunately, all requests for refunds were initially denied, with Microsoft later deciding to offer a 90-day grace period for refunds. Apparently, Gazillion's terms of service for this game had always stated that the company reserved the right to terminate the game, as well as any previously purchased in-game content, at any time and at their discretion, a clause which is apparently very common in games with this F2P model. This is just yet another example of the transience and instability of digital goods purchased in video games.

For context: the first iteration of this game, known simply as 'Marvel Heroes', had a very rough launch in 2014, scoring an average 58 on metacritic and copious amounts of bugs and imbalances being reported by the player-base. The company made many updates to the game in an effort to correct these issues in a 2015 revision which game to be known as 'Marvel Heroes 2015.' Following this update, the average metacritic score rose to 81, and the game enjoyed a moderate financial success, though Gazillion was still forced to lay off some staff. Then, in January of 2016, David Brevik resigned from his position as CEO at Gazillion and David Von Dorman took over his position.

Dorman then attempted to reboot the company earlier this year with the game's final revision known as 'Marvel Heroes Omega'. While he reported that early results with the game were promising, it was having difficulty keeping players engaged and playing. In an email Dorman sent to VentureBeat, he said that “It’s obviously been a really difficult period – a turn of events that is very hard to fathom. You know we were very committed to building Gazillion and we were on that trajectory – but yes, sadly due to a series of events that happened at an incredible pace (the last 30 days) the company is preparing to wind down. I can tell you that above anything else, the management team tried as best we could to make sure our employees would be treated with respect and given severance packages. It is heart breaking that things ended up this way, but as mentioned our intent has always been to take care of our people. If we could have done this differently we would have.” The console version of this latest revision of the game was just around 6 months old at the time of closure, meaning players had very little time to enjoy their purchases before they disappeared forever. It's more than likely that it was the game's rough launch and its subsequent inability to get back on its feet over the next 3 years which contributed most to Disney's termination of their contract.

 

[chartube12]

this game was currently the companies only stable source of in_come. without the cash from disney they had to shut and layoff every last employee. even the founder is now broke

 

[330]

Seems like the only way to succeed in the games industry is to not work for one of the big names. Instead it's best to create some unexplainable indie success like Minecraft or Flappy Bird (the Pet Rock of the games industry).

This has always been the case, as of lately. Countless great AAA titles had little or no profit while many indie games or small gaming projects got a lot of money. The only way for a multi-million dollars game to make enough money to satisfy everyone is by making money off other things, such as DLCs, preorders, or even in-game currencies. Every year more and more gamers wait for a considerable discount before purchasing anything while making fun of people for buying something day-one or preordering or even playing some games like Call of Duty or football games. Or games where the fandom has been extra cringey.

 

[jaysea]

Started the game after I read this. What is the problem actualy. I have no trouble playing the game.

 

[eriol33]

am I the only one who just knew this game today?

 

[anhminh]

Who would have guess the next video gaming crash started by EA.

Seems like the only way to succeed in the games industry is to not work for one of the big names. Instead it's best to create some unexplainable indie success like Minecraft or Flappy Bird (the Pet Rock of the games industry).

You just looking at the surface of indie world. Below every Minecraft or Flappy Bird are hundreds of dead games that no one bother to look at and many dreams that die along with it.

 

[Kioku]

Anyone claiming that players deserve refunds are baffling. There's a chance the servers of any given game could shut down at any point. Whether it's in a few weeks, months or years. The only instance I can see of warranted refunds are if the game shuts down within a year of public release. Any longer and its a risk the player should know by reading the EULA.. But hey... Who has the time?

 

[rro]

Guess this is a perfect example of why people should read the rules and user agreement first before they play the game. Developers often made a statement like "no refund" or "we can shutdown this game anytime we want" things there. So, if there really is such a statement, then people should think twice before actually spending real money on the game. Only spend your money if you're willing to take the risk. Unfortunately though, i believe that at least 99.999999% of gamers in this world never really bothered to read the user agreement completely, and just immediately scroll to the bottom and click 'i agree'. Many of them didn't realized that the user agreement part is considered the same as any official document for business, which you had to read every single detail before you signed them. And now that there's a problem, they just whining and complaining? What use for that, really?

 

[Thelonewolf88]

This why you dont buy digital, servers and licences will be obsolete in time.

 

[mr allen]

This why you dont buy digital, servers and licences will be obsolete in time.

As this is a F2P MMO buying a physical copy would be less than useless in this situation.

 

[FAST6191]

Why would they though? It's not like someone running the server has legal right (at the same time responsibility) over it.

That may depend upon a few things
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exemption-video-games-closer-look
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/dmca-game-preservation-exemptions-abandoned-games

I don't know enough about the game here to take a punt at how those might apply to it.

 

[WhiteMaze]

i never played this game, but i agree

This game?

You don't need to. Once you've played one Free to Play game, you've played them all.

It goes like this: You pay, you win.

 

[Noctosphere]

This game?

You don't need to. Once you've played one Free to Play game, you've played them all.

It goes like this: You pay, you win.

true

 

[FAST6191]

I have played free games where paying only provides you with another skin, your choice of character or another weapon that is similar enough to the others to not be overpowered or so radically different as to allow another mode of play whilst not overpowering your team.

At the same time I do see an awful lot of games where paying gives you a serious advantage and that is not good.

 

[Deleted member 408979]

Never heard of them, so I don't really care...

 

[rickwj324]

Can someone explain the lady Spider-Man? She looks pretty cool.

She's Gwen Stacy from an alternate Earth. "Spider-Gwen". Seriously way too many Spider characters in Marvel Comics....

 

[WhiteMaze]

I have played free games where paying only provides you with another skin, your choice of character or another weapon that is similar enough to the others to not be overpowered or so radically different as to allow another mode of play whilst not overpowering your team.

At the same time I do see an awful lot of games where paying gives you a serious advantage and that is not good.

Precisely. You're pointing out the good games. Unfortunately there's only a handful of those, if that.

The vast majority of games within the Free to Play model, rely on big spenders and bought advantages.

However a common misconception that I see scattered around the internet, is that some people believe these games do this to survive. No. That is incorrect. It is not to survive. These games do this for one simple reason:

Get as much money out of it, before the FREE players get bored of getting nowhere and leave the game. Without the FREE players as prey to conquer for the big spenders, the game will die in a very short time span.

The good F2P games (as you pointed out) are well balanced and you cannot Pay to Win. You can only buy cosmetics or other items that do not mess with the ranking system and your overall performance. Yet, they live-on. Those are the true F2P games, that survive and do not try to scam people out of as much money as possible before abandoning them.

 

[Noctosphere]

Precisely. You're pointing out the good games. Unfortunately there's only a handful of those, if that.

The vast majority of games within the Free to Play model, rely on big spenders and bought advantages.

However a common misconception that I see scattered around the internet, is that some people believe these games do this to survive. No. That is incorrect. It is not to survive. These games do this for one simple reason:

Get as much money out of it, before the FREE players get bored of getting nowhere and leave the game. Without the FREE players as prey to conquer for the big spenders, the game will die in a very short time span.

The good F2P games (as you pointed out) are well balanced and you cannot Pay to Win. You can only buy cosmetics or other items that do not mess with the ranking system and your overall performance. Yet, they live-on. Those are the true F2P games, that survive and do not try to scam people out of as much money as possible before abandoning them.

i agree
even those like PVZ2, you can earn virtual money to move forward by watching ads
if you want to go somewhere watching ads, you to watch like 1 hour of ads straight

 

[Yil]

i agree
even those like PVZ2, you can earn virtual money to move forward by watching ads
if you want to go somewhere watching ads, you to watch like 1 hour of ads straight

Back in the days of Nokia, there is one chinese game that make everything free after spending two dollars.

 

[WhiteMaze]

i agree
even those like PVZ2, you can earn virtual money to move forward by watching ads
if you want to go somewhere watching ads, you to watch like 1 hour of ads straight

Indeed.

We usually tend to forget that games are businesses first and foremost. No one is going to lift a finger, certainly not to make an entire game, if they do not think they have a reasonable chance of filling their pockets.

There's nothing wrong with that. You should get paid for your hard work and innovation. However there is a limit to this, and if nothing else, there are plenty of ethical reasons to not go ahead with certain actions within a F2P game's lifetime.

The story is always the same:

People talking about this brand new amazing Free to Play game, where everything is well balanced, purchases are incredibly cheap, don't affect gameplay too much, and little grinding.

Once the game has acquired a solid player-base, updates will follow. What are these updates? You guessed it. These so called "updates" serve only one purpose. To increase the prices on everything, de-balance the gameplay, and take every possible action to ensure you will have to keep paying more and more, if you want to keep playing and WINNING with your level 78 Knight.

This is where the downfall begins. But before the downfall begins, hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent. Once everyone catches on to it, people leave, the big spenders have no more prey, and they leave the game as well. The game is now officially dead.

Next step? Rinse and repeat.

Create the next revolutionary game that is unlike everything else until now, well balanced, everything is cheap and....oh....

You get the picture.

Welcome to the free to scam model.

 

[willebug]

Well while I'm questioning comic book stuff, how about Superior Spider-Man? Is he in this game? I heard it's Doc-Op possessing Parker's body and being badass or whatever.

No idea. My son plays/played the game a bit but I never really paid any attention. I'm sure they crammed as much stuff in there as possible. There were all kinds of character bundles you could buy for the game.