Poll of the Day > The sad example of Marvel Heroes 2015/16/Omega

(+) Yeah! (+)

I am hesitant about supporting games, early access especially but even once released by buying additional content ahead of time.

I now wait till I'm ready to actually play something before purchasing it?

Why you ask?

Well, I think it first started with Marvel Heroes. Maybe not everyone knows what happened with that game, so I thought I would mention it.

Marvel heroes was an action RPG game much like Path of Exile, but unlike PoE (which is amazing), it had alot of content you could just straight up buy. In theory, if you played long enough, you could unlock it all pretty much.....but I, like many others, just bought many of the characters straight up.

I bought all of them in fact, over 50 (Think I had 53?)...figuring I would just play them over time, so I bought them during deals etc. I played about half of them up through 50, maybe 10 to 60.....and only had maybe 10 that I had not played at all.

Still, those 10 heroes i didn't play at all were probably at least $50-60......and all the heroes I didn't play that much were probably over $100. That isn't a ton, but it's alot to be charged and then have the game go poof.

I read recently that players actually tried to sue to get money back, but the company was liquidated and there was no way to get refunds etc (although PS4 players did get money back I believe).

Anyway, this has taught me to be more careful about what i spend, as we often do not actually own our games anymore, and can't play them if a company goes under or stops supporting it etc.

That in combo with quite a few Kickstarter games not....being what they promised, or never actually being finished, and early access games being abandoned etc (or just being in early access for years with hardly any progress), has made me really hesitant to support new games, or buy content for the future.

It's pretty safe if you can just load it on your computer/game system and play any time, but...if it's server based.....beware!!
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You're own fault for supporting a blatant cashgrab game like Marvel heroes.

It was really fun though, and I really enjoyed playing it while it was around. I don't know what it is about super hero games, City of Heroes was a blast as well, and then poof. Super hero games that rock seem to be doomed.
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Lil69Leo posted...

You're own fault for supporting a blatant cashgrab game like Marvel heroes.

Sadly, that's the route most major developers are going in. Between rip-off DLC, crap season passes, half a dozen different "collector's edition" versions of games on release, and endless microtransactions, it's harder to find mainstream games that AREN'T blatant cashgrabs these days.


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MH was actually doing pretty well with David Brevik, a given considering he was one of the forces behind Blizzard North and the good Diablo games. The game's future seemed okay for a while after he left, despite its shaky start, but began to crumble under bad management.

Lil69Leo posted...

You're own fault for supporting a blatant cashgrab game like Marvel heroes.

Hey, I played that for a long time with my friends and I ever bought one character. It's very easy to get enough points to unlock characters in that game.
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Yeah, I even made a guide on how to unlock them all fairly fast for a small amount of money, but I didn't do it myself as I didn't really care about 10$ here or there. They had specials where if you bought a hero you would get a random one free etc.

I just didn't have enough time to play them all, and was distracted by other games with no clue it could just go poof suddenly.

I thought it was a really great system they had honestly. You could play it totally free, forever, if you wanted. I just spent money (and many other people did) because I wanted to just play heroes through to 60 and stop, or wanted to try new heroes right away etc.

I missed the bad management part, cause I guess it happened REALLY fast (at least in the way I currently pay attention to time). I took my normal 6 month break or so, turned around and it was gone.
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wolfy42 posted...

I missed the bad management part, cause I guess it happened REALLY fast (at least in the way I currently pay attention to time). I took my normal 6 month break or so, turned around and it was gone.

It did look like it happened fairly quickly. Brevik left early in 2016 and things seemed okay at the time, it was around the middle of 2017 when the whole thing basically appeared to disintegrate. 5 months after the game launched on consoles Gazillion was lights out, doors locked dead. The servers were killed like a month before they were scheduled to. There was definitely a significant amount of head scratching, and I imagine not just by players.