Electronic Arts, Marvel Dissolve Game Deal

Multiyear agreement that played to strengths officially over. Was Tsunoda's departure the deal breaker?

Electronic Arts today brought conclusive clarity to the future of its upcoming Marvel Comics-based fighting game formerly in development at EA Chicago.

It ain't happening.

"EA and Marvel have jointly agreed to discontinue development of the Marvel titles under the EA Games Label. This was a business decision based on EA's portfolio strategy," an Electronic Arts rep told GameTap today.

Just days after news of former EA Chicago general manager Kudo Tsunoda's departure, the game publisher confirms its deal with Marvel is over.

The title would have been the second in a multigame deal Electronic Arts and Marvel entered into in early 2004. The first offspring of the deal was 2005's underwhelming multiplatform game, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects.

Back when the two superpowers announced the deal, EA's then-COO (now its CEO) John Riccitiello called the collaboration "a unique opportunity...to bring [Marvel's] renowned superheroes into original videogame environments, as well as providing us an opportunity to create new heroes that will live in games, comic books and other licensing or media opportunities that Marvel presents."

The deal with EA was similar to one Marvel had with Capcom. That deal pit classic Marvel superheroes against original characters from the game publisher and resulted in the 1999's Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes.

Back in 2004, Marvel was just as excited by the prospects of the EA collaboration. Then-Marvel CEO Allen Lipson said the deal created a "tremendous opportunity for EA to create new characters for fighting games that can be exploited through our global merchandise licensing machine to fuel sales in many other product categories."

The companies clearly saw the potential for a commercial killing.

Today's confirmation that the alliance had been terminated comes on the heels of EA Chicago's studio head Kudo Tsunoda leaving that organization. Tsunoda recently accepted a senior position within Microsoft's Xbox division. It's not clear if his departure influenced the move to dissolve the agreement between EA and Marvel

What was to have been the second collaborative game was in development at EA Chicago and had just recently begin to surface in EA messaging and promotion. For the past few months, however, news about the title had dried up considerably, leading many industry watchers to wonder what had become of the title.

There was no speculation that the entire deal between Marvel and EA was at risk.

For its part, Marvel issued a statement, saying, as EA did, that the two companies "have jointly agreed to discontinue development of Marvel fighting games under the Electronic Arts brand."

As for what's to come of Marvel's intent to extend its brand into the game space, the company said, rather vaguely, that the move "will not affect Marvel's ongoing plans to release fighting games based on the Marvel properties in the future."