Marvel Entertainment has announced that Cryptic Studios, creators of the City of Heroes Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game (MMORG), has been named the developer of Marvel Universe Online.  In a first, the Marvel-based MMORG will be able to run on both the Windows Vista PC and Xbox 360 platforms.  

In November of 2004, just six months after Cryptic Studios had launched its City of Heroes MMORG, Marvel sued Cryptic accusing the game developer of trademark violations (see 'Marvel Sues Over City of Heroes').  Marvel settled 'amicably' with Cryptic in December of 2005, but in the meantime Marvel had forged a deal with Microsoft in July of 2005 to develop an online game (see 'Marvel and Microsoft Team Up for MMOG').  Under the terms of the new deal announced today Cryptic will develop the Marvel Online game exclusively for the two Microsoft platforms, so all the parties appear to have gotten something out of the deal.

ICv2 interviewed Frank Pape, Senior Director of Business Development, Microsoft Game Studios; Jack Emmert, Creative Director, Cryptic Studios; and Ames Kirshen, Vice President of Interactive, Marvel Entertainment about the game and its impact on other aspects of Marvel's business. 

When asked by ICv2 to provide a potential release date for the game, Pape at first refused to characterize a date, but finally was willing to grant that it will be out before the end of the decade.

The mechanics of the new Marvel MMORG will differ substantially from those of City of Heroes where players basically build their own superheroes.  The Marvel game will center around the heroes of the Marvel universe and will feature custom art and character designs created especially for the game.  The company representatives interviewed by ICv2 would not characterize the specific rendition of the characters, but in response to a question did say that the game will not make use of the movie or animated versions of the Marvel characters. 

The companies have not decided whether the Marvel MMORG will come packaged in a box or be sold strictly as a digital download, with the most probable outcome being a combination of the two channels. 

When asked by ICv2 whether they thought the game would cannibalize sales from Marvel comics or other Marvel products, representatives of Marvel and Cryptic replied that it was hard to predict if any cannibalization would occur, but they also noted that the Star Wars MMORPG, as one example, had not reduced sales of other Star Wars merchandise. 

Asked whether a new licensing stream might arise out of the character renditions from the MMORPG, Kirshen said, 'It's not out of the realm of possibility that this will influence other areas of our business.'