Movie-based video games have had a bad rap for years for being well… crappy. While the hype surrounding movies generally result in sales for these games, it is often at the expense of a bad taste in the mouth for players. Many attribute to the poor quality of these games with them being rushed to align with the movie’s release schedule. Well, Marvel is going to start to “be the change”, as they’ve now announced they will do away with movie-based video games.
At Sony’s E3 conference this week, it was announced that a new Spider-Man title will be coming out soon, featuring a different looking incarnation than the one played by Tom Holland during his cameo in Captain America: Civil War. This lead to speculation than this title would be a standalone, oppose to the several Spidey titles, made by Activision, that released simultaneously with Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man film series and more recently with Marc Webb‘s The Amazing Spider-Man series. Jay Ong, head of Marvel Games gave some insight into this upcoming game and the future of their movie-based titles.
When we tell people that they aren’t just building a movie game, that opens up their eyes. “You mean we have the freedom to invest and deliver the title that we want to deliver?” They don’t have to meet some artificial date. We give them time. We initiate projects far earlier than we used to.
It seems this move is to benefit the gamers oppose to cashing in on successful movies with inadequate games. Let’s just hope abandoning movie-based games will finally deliver us the X-Men video game we’ve always deserved. Here’s to hoping.