On December 3rd 2016, at Sony's Playstation
Experience press conference, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite was
officially unveiled to the world. As of producing this video, many details
about the game remain unknown, but it was an announcement many fans of the
cult fighting series thought would never happen! And as an extra bonus, the previous game in the series, 2011's Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
was brought back onto the PSN store! Yes, if you weren't aware, all versions
of Marvel vs Capcom 3 and its DLC were unceremoniously delisted a few years
prior, and those weren't the only casualties. But the unveiling of Marvel vs Capcom Infinite also
brought hope that these dark times were over! If you're wondering "... well, how did we
get here?", well you're in the right place, because this is Past Mortem, where we break
down and explore the stories of video games, and we're gonna take you for a ride through the wild,
twisted history of the Marvel/Capcom partnership. Before we begin, a note on media licensing: In the rough-and-tumble world of transmedia empires,
one IP can be ported off into separate mediums. Oftentimes to help with the cost of producing
content across so many mediums, a company will license the rights to another company
to produce something like, say, X-Men on a TV show, and another company to produce it for a movie,
and another company for, say, a video game. Because they are different mediums,
they are legally distinct from each other, and if that sounds messy... it's because it is! Licensing rights are a huge part of the Marvel story,
and why the Marvel vs series came into being. Our story begins in the early 90s, long before the Marvel
brand was the dominating pop culture force it is today. At the time, Marvel did not have the resources to make video
games themselves, so they looked to other companies, like Capcom, who were enjoying a near-
dominance in the fighting game genre after basically birthing it with 1991's
phenomenally successful Street Fighter II. To say that Street Fighter II was a cultural
milestone would be putting it lightly. However, Capcom's success bred
many worthy competitors. In order to stay on top, the company
needed to evolve its games. It was this competition that drove them to
refine Street Fighter II over many iterations, and create new titles like Darkstalkers. While this was happening, Marvel was enjoying
a successful media expansion of the X-Men: A Saturday-morning animated series,
an arcade brawler by Konami, a pair of successful Sega Genesis
games, just to name a few, made characters like Wolverine, Storm and Cyclops
household names outside of the comic book world. This led to the first collaboration with Capcom
and Marvel: 1994's X-Men: Children of the Atom, the true origin of the Marvel vs Capcom series. The game not only featured lesser-known Marvel
characters like Omega Red and Silver Samurai, it showcased a more outrageous playstyle
that stood out from the pack! Characters varied wildly in size, could jump
three screens high while performing air juggles, had enormous, screen-filling special moves and
supers that could be performed quite easily. For Marvel, it proved to be another
successful project for the X-Men. For Capcom, it proved to be another
successful hit in a still-ballooning market. Afterwards, Capcom expanded
this unique style of fighting game with a direct sequel in 1995, with Marvel Super Heroes. After that, the Marvel vs series was born
proper with X-Men vs Street Fighter in '96, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter in '97, and Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes in '98, each game ratcheting up the series' trademark
insanity, before culminating on the magnum opus: Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes in 2000. Thanks in part to an arcade-perfect
port for the Sega Dreamcast, Marvel vs Capcom 2 in particular would be an enormous
cult hit, especially in the competitive fight scene. By most accounts it is an unbalanced,
broken mess of a fighting game, but its staggering roster of 56 characters and 3-on-3
combat gave fight fans nearly bottomless possibilities. Despite being the sixth entry, when fight fans
said Marvel, they meant Marvel vs Capcom 2. For years physical copies were a highly valuable item. It would have one of the longest streaks in the
world's largest fighting tournament, Evolution, technically debuting when the tournament
was instead known as Battle by the Bay. But that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves: Before
Marvel vs Capcom 2, Marvel was in big trouble. In 1996, due to unwise investments in things
like collector's editions, stickers and toy biz, Marvel Enterprises went bankrupt. During the years that followed, the reformed Marvel
Inc. licensed out the rights to several of its IPs in order to make some quick cash. Deals like this saw Fox with the movie
rights to X-Men, among others, and New Line Cinema with the rights to Blade. While these deals made some money in the short
term, they were essentially rip-offs for Marvel. For example, while Blade made
$70 million at the box office, Marvel made only a reported $25,000 off the movie. But what does this have to do with video games? Well, in October 1999, after Blade but before X-Men, Marvel Inc. licensed out the video game
rights of those two franchises to Activision, and then followed up with the rights
to Spider-Man two years later. This would result in games like
X-Men: Mutant Academy, and give Spider-Man and Wolverine cameos in
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and 3, respectively. But this also meant Capcom became unable to
produce more entries in the Marvel vs series, though Capcom did support Marvel
vs Capcom 2 for a few years, porting it to the Playstation 2 and Xbox in 2002. They also kept themselves busy with
a new series of vs games with SNK, though none would match the cult
status of Marvel vs Capcom 2. In 2005, Marvel started making some big moves that would put them on the trajectory towards
becoming the media juggernaut we know today. Though shakily recovered from their
bankruptcy just nine years earlier, Marvel decided to risk ten of
its most profitable characters in order to receive funding to make its own movies. Merrill Lynch agreed to give them
$525 million, over seven years, for them to make ten movies and open a studio. But Marvel decided to make it even more complicated. A couple months after this deal was finalized, Marvel regained control of its Iron Man
franchises from New Line Cinema, which happened to be a favorite character
of Marvel Studios' CEO and CFO. Unfortunately, they were not able to use Merrill
Lynch's money to make an Iron Man movie because it wasn't a part of the collateral
characters negotiated in the deal. That meant Marvel needed to raise some money
for the movie's $158 million budget, pronto. Among other things, this saw Activision
renew their contract with Marvel, securing the rights to Spider-Man
and the X-Men through 2017. They also formed other video
game deals around this time, like selling the rights to Iron Man, Incredible
Hulk and Thor games to Sega in 2007, the Marvel Super Hero Squad rights to THQ in 2008, and the rights to a Marvel MOBA to Gazillion in 2009. Meanwhile, back at Capcom, the decade saw the video game company suffering through highs and lows on the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox, and as the
next generation of consoles rolled around, fighting games would find
themselves in a bit of a slump. Though the competitive fighting
scene was steadily growing, interest in fighting games among the greater
gaming community was at an all-time low. This is sometimes referred to by
fight fans as "the dark times". However, 2008 would mark a
comeback for fighting games. The digital release of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD
Remix that winter proved to be a massive hit for Capcom but it was all an opening act for
the next big title: Street Fighter IV, which was released on Xbox 360 and PS3
February 2009, and sold millions worldwide. 2009 was also a banner year for Marvel. The unprecedented success of Iron Man the year prior,
and the beginnings of the Marvel Cinematic Universe led to a deal with a little-known company you may
have heard of called the Walt Disney Company. On August 31st 2009, Disney announced a
plan to acquire Marvel for $4 billion, a deal that wouldn't officially be approved
until the end of the calendar year. Proved to be quite a successful deal, though it would bring a number of complications
to Marvel IPs in the following years. Now, before this deal was announced, things couldn't
have been better for Marvel vs Capcom fans! In the fall of 2009, Capcom re-released
Marvel vs Capcom 2 on PSN and XBLA, featuring, for the first time in North America, online play! According to Capcom's website, these digital
versions alone sold 1.4 million copies, and the good news kept comin'! In April 2010, Capcom announced Marvel
vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, the first brand-new chapter in the series in a decade! Released in February 2011, the game was a hit, and would receive an expanded edition, Ultimate Marvel
vs Capcom 3, released in November later that year. It's unclear exactly how this deal for Marvel
vs Capcom 3 was able to go down, especially since many of the characters on the
roster were supposedly tied to Sega and Activision. Activision in particular was set
to have its rights up until 2017. This hints to Disney possibly buying out
contracts or modifying deals in some way, though details of this are not public. We reached out to several people
at Capcom, Activision and Marvel, but received no comment due to
various NDAs, so who can say. But either way, Marvel vs Capcom was back! And it was a glorious few years for Marvel fans, but the changing tide of business deals began
to show in 2013 with a few coinciding events: First, the release of Disney Infinity, the often-unprofitable Disney Interactive's entry
into the then-burgeoning toys-to-life market, and second the digital removal, and in some
cases, recall of several Marvel video games. Activision's numerous X-Men and Spider-Man
games, Konami's X-Men arcade game, but also PSN and XBLA versions of Marvel vs Capcom 2, Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. Hell, even the iOS version of Marvel
vs Capcom 2 was delisted, and we never even knew that game existed, I would
have loved to have had that on Punching Weight! And this was all a year before the P.T. debacle. All hail the dark future of digital stores! Now it may seem odd to discuss the Disney Infinity
games in a video about Capcom arcade fighters but it's important to note that they were
developed by Avalanche Software and produced by Disney Interactive,
Disney's in-house interactive media studio. This was a rare occasion of Disney foregoing licensing, and themselves entering the video
game scene on their own. Disney Interactive, however, was
notoriously unprofitable before Infinity, losing the House of Mouse $1.41
billion between 2008 and 2013. However Disney Infinity, which cost
an estimated $100 million to produce, finally dragged the division out of
the red: Released in August 2013, by January they had sold about
three million starter packs. After the fact though, it seemed that Disney was initially
too conservative with the production of its Infinity figures, resulting in too many buyers and not enough
toys, a.k.a. too much money left on the table. But that was 2013, when many other
Marvel games were still available. The success of Disney Infinity, coupled with the
re-acquisition of rights from various publishers, paved the way for 2014's Disney Infinity
2.0, which featured Marvel characters. But despite Marvel Mania at the box office,
2.0 was not as successful as 1.0, with Disney Interactive's game division reporting
an $88 million loss in revenue from the prior year. Infinity 2.0 figurines cost more, but sold less than 1.0 figurines, definitely not the recipe for financial success. Also, Club Penguin subscriptions were down 2%! Ultimately, Disney would later tell their investors that 2.0 was unprofitable because of "inventory obsolescence". The hell does that mean? Well, according to a Kotaku article written
by Patrick Klepek, it's fancy talk for: "Whoops, last time we made too few toys,
this time we made too many toys! Whoops!" In other video game related news,
2014 also saw another casualty, the removal of Marvel vs Capcom Origins Collection, which was delisted from XBLA and PSN at the end
of the calendar year, only 15 months after release. Developed by Iron Galaxy, it was
a lovingly crafted collection featuring arcade-perfect ports of Marvel
Super Heroes and Marvel vs Capcom 1, complete with tons of extras and bonus
features, like a host of challenges and the ability to play the game as though you were
watching over someone's shoulder in the arcade! How crazy is that?! But with its removal went the last piece of the
Marvel vs games: At the beginning of 2015, not a single game in the Marvel vs Capcom
franchise was available for digital purchase, with most Marvel games also still missing in action. Yet by July, Activision's Deadpool game would
reappear on PSN, XBLA and PC digital storefronts, before receiving an HD port in November. This was no doubt to coincide with the theatrical release
of Deadpool the following year in February 2016, though it is an interesting anomaly, since Marvel usually tries to not promote 20th Century Fox's Marvel movies. This possible sea change in Marvel games' availability
happened around the release of Infinity 3.0 in August 2015, which was able to ride Force Awakens hype to officially
become the best-selling franchise in the toys-to-life market, making $200 million in 2015, more
than Skylanders and Lego combined! However, this still reflected a loss from Infinity 2.0,
a fact that's even more damning considering that 3.0 had exclusive console rights to the
Force Awakens storyline and characters. Not even the highest-grossing film since Avatar
could get the franchise on sturdy footing. Later next year, in May 2016, Disney announced the
discontinuation of the Disney Infinity franchise. This wasn't just a simple cancellation
of a popular franchise, Disney also shuttered Infinity developers
Avalanche Software and announced that Disney would no longer develop their own games, instead opting to license them out to other companies. You know, how Marvel had been doing it for years! A company ultimately has
to worry about its bottom line, and making physical merch was difficult
even for a mega-corporation like Disney. Video games is THAT volatile of a market. It was a no-brainer in light of the DICE-developed Star
Wars Battlefont, released the same year as Infinity 3.0, becoming the best-selling Star
Wars game in franchise history! Licensing had delivered the goods,
whereas in-house development had not. Not coincidentally, after the dissolvement
of the Infinity series we started seeing Marvel characters showing up in other
games, like a new Spider-Man game from Insomniac, and even a Guardians of the Galaxy game from Telltale. This would bring us to late 2016, when rumblings started
to surface about the possibility of a Marvel vs Capcom 4, which was ultimately revealed to be
Marvel vs Capcom Infinite at PSX 2016, and as a bonus, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom
3 was returned digitally to Playstation 4. We've had to piece a lot of this
story together ourselves, again: we reached out but were unable to confirm
the nature of Capcom's new deal with Disney and Capcom is not currently talking
to press about Marvel Infinite... yet. There are tons of rumors, but as of producing this video, not much has been officially confirmed
about the Marvel roster for Infinite. There have been a lot of unverified leaks,
but in an interview after the reveal at PSX a Marvel rep said Marvel characters were to be
primarily from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which may mean the diminished
appearance, if not outright exclusion of some of the most popular legacy
Marvel vs Capcom characters: The X-Men, like Wolverine, Sentinel and Magneto. Which would be tragic! Wolverine has been
in every single Marvel vs Capcom game, including Children of the Atom
and Marvel Super Heroes. This is notable in that it brings us back to
where we started, with media licensing. While X-Men is one of Marvel's most recognizable IPs,
they have noticably drawn less attention to it lately, likely because the movie rights are
still owned by 20th Century Fox. In the world of transmedia licensing, each product
functions as a commercial for another product, and it isn't in Disney's interests to
promote a competing film franchise. However, this is not a firm fact, as these deals change. For example, Sony still owns
the film rights to Spider-Man, but they were able to work out a deal with
Disney to share him in both ventures, allowing him to appear in Captain America: Civil
War, so maybe we'll see Wolverine after all! While we did our best to untangle legal jargon
and shine some light on a labyrinth of NDAs, this story is still developing: March 7th will see Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom
3 released on Xbox One and PC digital stores, and we hope Capcom will be able to make other
entries available on digital storefronts again. We can only hope that once Marvel is able to
regain complete control over all its properties, things will loosen up and we'll look
back on this story and just laugh. Until then, we recommend fight fans consider buying
physical copies of Marvel vs Capcom Infinite if possible, because man... who knows?! But if you have any info on where Marvel vs
Capcom is going in the future, let us know. For Grace Kramer and Derek Alexander,
this is Past Mortem, signing off. Thanks for watching! Stop Skeletons From
Fighting is a Patreon-supported show and wouldn't be possible without the generosity
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we'll see you again real soon! "Last time we made too few toys, this
time we made too many toys! A-hyuk!" I dunno if that's Goofy or Banjo, but... There it is.
