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Fox and Marvel team up to make "one of the biggest and boldest" Marvel mobile games

N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
This will be from Aftershock Los Angeles, one of the ex-Kabam studios that Fox bought and fully owns as part of their new gaming division.

It's an action RPG, though we have no further information at the moment beyond the below statements.

Marvel statement:

“Aftershock is creating something special, and we are thrilled to finally announce this news,” said Jay Ong, the senior vice president of games and innovation for Marvel Entertainment, in a statement. “The game will be the full package: an exciting storyline, epic moments with Marvel superheroes and super villains, and incredible visuals that truly bring our characters to life. It’s shaping up to be one of our biggest and boldest projects in our mobile portfolio, and we know it will exceed our fans’ expectations.”
Click to expand...

Fox statement:

“The Aftershock Los Angeles team, led by Amir Rahimi, is developing an explosive action mobile game set in the Marvel Universe that will feature an innovative game design with stunning graphics,” said Aaron Loeb, the president of studios for FoxNext Games, in a statement. “To team up with Marvel on our first game at FoxNext Games is a dream partnership.”
Click to expand...
Source: https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/27/...make-a-marvel-mobile-game-as-its-first-title/
 
J

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
fingers crossed for some actual gameplay in this one

sounds like standard mobile fare thus far though:

the full package: an exciting storyline, epic moments with Marvel superheroes and super villains, and incredible visuals that truly bring our characters to life
Click to expand...
 
SoulUnison

SoulUnison

Banned
You know you're stretching your IP too thin when you announce a new project as "one of the biggest and boldest" to use the IP in question.

It's like announcing your new Mega Man game as being "one of the biggest!" back when we got, like, 4 Mega Mans a year over multiple branches of the franchise.
 
D

Dali

Member
Jakoo said:
Is it safe to assume this is an X-Men game if Fox has that lisence? Or is it only for movies?
Click to expand...
I think marvel can do whatever they want with xmen and ff in the video game space they just choose not to because the don't have the movie licenses.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
The Broken Ska Record said:
Oh, so it's not limited to the characters in Fox's wheelhouse?
Click to expand...
So the Aftershock story is a bit long winded, but it essentially goes like this:

Kabam, the mobile publisher-developer behind the hugely successful Marvel: Contest of Champions fighting game (40+ million downloads, $400+ million in lifetime revenue, was making $20-$25+ million a month recently) had seven new games in development with an average development budget of $14+ million across four different locations.

Due to an unusual bid for their Vancouver studio (the people who made Contest of Champions), their board instructed them to sell that studio as a standalone entity because they thought it was worth more that way. It ended up selling to Netmarble (a massively successful South Korean mobile publisher) for $800 million, along with their Transformers game that played similarly.

However, this left three additional studios (Los Angeles, San Francisco, China) and their six projects still sitting around. They shut down their Chinese studio (who was making one game to our knowledge) to make the remaining two studios more attractive for acquisition. Fox bought both of them for their new mobile game division, in part because they were making a flagship Avatar mobile game. I'm guessing one of other four remaining projects was this title, as it's apparently coming out before Avatar, despite being announced much later.

Kabam certainly wouldn't have only been using Fox's characters, so this is very likely to have lots of other Marvel characters in it.
 
F

FelipeMGM

Member
Fox and Marvel team up to make "one of the biggest and boldest" Marvel ...
Click to expand...
excited-baby.gif


...mobile games
Click to expand...

tenor.gif
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Jeffrey said:
So... Future fight?
Click to expand...

That one is Netmarble. They're a separate company from South Korea.

Netmarble's Marvel line-up consists of:
- Marvel: Future Fight
- Marvel: Contest of Champions
- Marvel: Avengers Academy

It's not impossible they make more in the future as well, but I think that's all they have at the moment.
 
M

Mr. Smiley

Member
Interested in seeing how they differentiate it from Future Fight.

But Marvel should have no complications with X-men video game rights, right? What could a collaboration with Fox entail?
 
J

J-Skee

Member
Nirolak said:
I'm 90% certain this was in development before Fox bought the studio, so I'm guessing it's pretty much all the characters sans Fantastic Four.
Click to expand...

We should be reminded that Fox only owns the live action iterations of those Marvel characters. When it comes to any other medium, that don't have a say. This is similar to the deal with Sony for Spider-Man. Anything outside of movies, Sony doesn't have control, such as merchandise & toys. But as I type that out, how is Sony making an animated Spider-Man movie?
 
M

Malyse

Member
Nirolak said:
That one is Netmarble. They're a separate company from South Korea.

Netmarble's Marvel line-up consists of:
- Marvel: Future Fight
- Marvel: Contest of Champions
- Marvel: Avengers Academy

It's not impossible they make more in the future as well, but I think that's all they have at the moment.
Click to expand...

Avengers Academy is TinyCo. Contest of Champions is Kabam. Netmarble only has one Marvel game and that's Future Fight.
 
A

Absoludacrous

Member
Unspeakable Evil said:
Fox bought a game studio? Can they use X-men/make x-men games? Would be funny if ironically enough Marvel wouldn't allow it.
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Fox has no say in how Marvel uses their characters in video games. It's completely up to Marvel if they use X-Men/FF characters or not. They've been easing up on their no X-Men rule, so they're probably in. Probably still no FF though.
 
M

Malyse

Member
Nirolak said:
Netmarble owns both Kabam and TinyCo.

Edit: Well, SGN was technically an investment.
Click to expand...

Netmarble bought Kabam Vancouver. They have studios in Austin and San Francisco and there's no Netmarble logo in the Contest of Champions.

As you said, SGN invested in TinyCo and again, there's no Netmarble logos in Avengers Academy.
 
F

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
It's awesome to finally be able to say something.

This is the game that I'm working on at Aftershock. We had to keep it quiet for a bit, but I'm excited about it! We've been dying to announce it.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Malyse said:
Netmarble bought Kabam Vancouver. They have studios in Austin and San Francisco and there's no Netmarble logo in the Contest of Champions.

As you said, SGN invested in TinyCo and again, there's no Netmarble logos in Avengers Academy.
Click to expand...

Okay, so, Take-Two is a company that owns divisions called "Rockstar" and "2K". There's no Take-Two logo in their games, but they are still Take-Two companies.

Contest of Champions is a Netmarble game on the basis that Netmarble 100% owns the studio that makes it. It's like how Eidos' games are still Square Enix's products even though "Square Enix" didn't develop them.

It's fair to consider SGN separate since it's not clear it's a majority ownership. TinyCo is 100% owned by SGN though. It's SGN where it's not clear if they're 100% owned by Netmarble, or if Netmarble is just their primary investor.

Edit: Oh, and also, those support studios for Kabam (the San Francisco and Austin offices) came along with Kabam Vancouver as part of supporting the game. They're also owned by Netmarble. The primary development teams of the other projects though (including the main San Francisco team) are what make up Aftershock, which Fox bought.
 
F

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
Unspeakable Evil said:
Congratulations.
Click to expand...

Thank you!

It's been really fun working on this. And as a Marvel fan, it adds just that little bit more excitement when I head into the studio.

I've worked on licensed games before (at Activision and Vivendi for example), but this one has a lot of genuine love for the license being put into it.
 
U

Unspeakable Evil

Member
Figboy79 said:
Thank you!

It's been really fun working on this. And as a Marvel fan, it adds just that little bit more excitement when I head into the studio.

I've worked on licensed games before (at Activision and Vivendi for example), but this one has a lot of genuine love for the license being put into it.
Click to expand...
I'm really curious about the FF/x-men thing but understand if that's above your pay grade and you can't answer that. :p
 
J

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
Figboy79 said:
It's awesome to finally be able to say something.

This is the game that I'm working on at Aftershock. We had to keep it quiet for a bit, but I'm excited about it! We've been dying to announce it.
Click to expand...

congrats! can you share anything about the gameplay?
 
M

mas8705

Member
I feel like this is supposed to be a distraction from the things we actually want to see. Still, if it works, then perhaps it could lead to something bigger.

Figboy79 said:
It's awesome to finally be able to say something.

This is the game that I'm working on at Aftershock. We had to keep it quiet for a bit, but I'm excited about it! We've been dying to announce it.
Click to expand...

Best of luck to you on the project good sir. Hope the final product turns out well. ^_^
 
T

The Broken Ska Record

Member
Nirolak said:
So the Aftershock story is a bit long winded, but it essentially goes like this:

Kabam, the mobile publisher-developer behind the hugely successful Marvel: Contest of Champions fighting game (40+ million downloads, $400+ million in lifetime revenue, was making $20-$25+ million a month recently) had seven new games in development with an average development budget of $14+ million across four different locations.

Due to an unusual bid for their Vancouver studio (the people who made Contest of Champions), their board instructed them to sell that studio as a standalone entity because they thought it was worth more that way. It ended up selling to Netmarble (a massively successful South Korean mobile publisher) for $800 million, along with their Transformers game that played similarly.

However, this left three additional studios (Los Angeles, San Francisco, China) and their six projects still sitting around. They shut down their Chinese studio (who was making one game to our knowledge) to make the remaining two studios more attractive for acquisition. Fox bought both of them for their new mobile game division, in part because they were making a flagship Avatar mobile game. I'm guessing one of other four remaining projects was this title, as it's apparently coming out before Avatar, despite being announced much later.

Kabam certainly wouldn't have only been using Fox's characters, so this is very likely to have lots of other Marvel characters in it.
Click to expand...

Oh gotcha. I didn't know Fox started up a mobile division.
 
F

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
Unspeakable Evil said:
I'm really curious about the FF/x-men thing but understand if that's above your pay grade and you can't answer that. :p
Click to expand...

jon bones said:
congrats! can you share anything about the gameplay?
Click to expand...

Lol. It's not above my pay grade, but we literally aren't allowed to talk about stuff. Even the higher ups have to keep a tight lip.

I can't say anything about the gameplay at the moment other than what the article says, that it's an action/rpg, which is true. I was just as surprised that FOX and Marvel have been working so well together when it comes to this project. I can't comment on the roster either.

Coming from a gamer standpoint, and a console/pc gamer primarily, I will say it's very fun, and I personally think it would make a cool console/pc game, but I know the money is in mobile these days. Now that decision is definitely above my pay grade.

I hate all the secrecy, but what are you gonna do?

mas8705 said:
I feel like this is supposed to be a distraction from the things we actually want to see. Still, if it works, then perhaps it could lead to something bigger.



Best of luck to you on the project good sir. Hope the final product turns out well. ^_^
Click to expand...

Thank you!

It's actually shaping up really nicely! I've worked on games where I've hung my head in shame at the end result. This is not one of those games. lol.
 
S

Steiner

Banned
Figboy79 said:
Lol. It's not above my pay grade, but we literally aren't allowed to talk about stuff. Even the higher ups have to keep a tight lip.

I can't say anything about the gameplay at the moment other than what the article says, that it's an action/rpg, which is true. I was just as surprised that FOX and Marvel have been working so well together when it comes to this project. I can't comment on the roster either.

Coming from a gamer standpoint, and a console/pc gamer primarily, I will say it's very fun, and I personally think it would make a cool console/pc game, but I know the money is in mobile these days. Now that decision is definitely above my pay grade.

I hate all the secrecy, but what are you gonna do?



Thank you!

It's actually shaping up really nicely! I've worked on games where I've hung my head in shame at the end result. This is not one of those games. lol.
Click to expand...

Do you have any idea of when the veil will be lifted, or when the next press release will go out showing off a screen shot, key art, trailer, anything?
 
F

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
Steiner said:
Do you have any idea of when the veil will be lifted, or when the next press release will go out showing off a screen shot, key art, trailer, anything?
Click to expand...

I don't, actually!

I know we wanted to announce the partnership sooner rather than later, but I can't say when we'll be rolling out actual trailers and screenshots. This isn't a confirmation, but I'd imagine that now that the game has been officially announced, screens and other info will start to trickle out not long after. That's usually the case, from my experience, at least.

It just feels good to finally be able to say it exists. Fielding questions from my family and friends about what I've been working on has been a pain. lol.
 
Z

Zero-ELEC

Banned
Neat, I guess? This is basically a nothing announcement. Not even an announcement of an announcement. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I do wonder how it's gonna differentiate itself from Future Fight, tho.

suddenlyissoon said:
I wish this obsession with mobile would stop.
Click to expand...

It's not really an obsession. It's a valid platform with an enormous market. This is like complaining when someone makes a game for the 3DS: "I wish this obsession with handhelds would stop."
 
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