Marvel MMO Canceled

During an interview with MTV from the DICE summit, Microsoft’s top executive Shane Kim revealed that Marvel Online had been canceled. The MMO title was being developed by City of Heroes creators Cryptic Studios in conjunction with Marvel Enterprises.

I’ll confirm. Marvel and we have agreed to end development on the MMO. It was an amicable decision… It’s just something that we felt that, for us and for them, it would be better if we ended development. Which is disappointing, because that had a lot of promise. But sometimes you have to make these decisions… It’s a tough space. It’s a very competitive space. And it’s a space that’s changing quite a bit. …When we first entered into the development and agreement of the development of ‘Marvel Universe Online,’ we thought we would create another subscription-based MMO. And if you really look at the data there’s basically one that’s successful and everything else wouldn’t meet our level or definition of commercial success. And then you have to look [and say]: ?Can we change the business model for that? Is that really viable given how far we are in development? And so forth. Does Marvel want to do that?’ There’s a whole bunch of factors.

Microsoft just seems to be allergic to the MMO business. The company has passed on three so far: Marvel Online, Vanguard and True Fantasy Live Online. Given the troubles with Vanguard, maybe Microsoft has made the right decision on this game, but spending all that money to do it doesn”t seem to make much sense. With this latest cancelation, perhaps the company will permanently swear off trying to get into the MMO business.