The Marvel Contest of Champions Legacy, part 5...

 

Having a great comic book property meant nothing if it was mismanaged. When it came to making great movies out of comic books Hollywood did not always get it right. The studios often released big-budget let downs. They would sometimes pack as many big name celebrities as they could into a movie, hoping that star power was enough to win over the audience. They scripts were written by people unfamiliar with the comics, and directed by equally clueless people. They often ignored the elements that made characters appealing in the first place. Worse yet, they would sell a license to a game publisher to make a tie-in video game. They were almost all horrible, and sadly the only time a comic book fan ever got to play as their hero.

 

Look at the creative decisions of the previous generation of movie executives. They tried to cash in on the comic book trend some 30 years ago. They put films like Dick Tracy, The Shadow and The Phantom on the big screen. Those characters were darlings to the Silent Generation / Baby Boomer crowd. They grew up on radio serials, and black and white cinema. These classic figures couldn't entertain the Gen-Xers that grew up on the Superman, and Batman features. It was no surprise when the retro hero movies flopped. They showed how hopelessly out of touch the old guard was. Compare this to how well Marvel was handling their film and television properties in the current era. Executives Kevin Feige, and Jeph Loeb had intimate knowledge of the various franchises. They had far more hits than misses, in part because they didn't repeat the mistakes of the executives that came before. The other reason was because they understood each hero and selected the right screenwriter and director for each project. 

 

 

Marvel's digital leadership was also on their A-Game. When it came to new media everything they experimented with seemed to strike gold. Especially Marvel Contest of Champions. It was not by accident. Marvel Games Executive Creative Director Bill Rosemann had been writing, editing and developing new IP for decades. He learned first-hand about the creative process and knew what fans expected. He knew that comic book fans had been burned in the past and were wary of any new titles. He had worked his way up the Marvel ladder by earning their trust. So had Marvel New Media Vice President and Creative Executive Ryan "Agent-M" Penagos. He originally started with Marvel's Digital Media Group. His focus had shifted as rapidly as the digital landscape changed, he soon found himself coordinating social media, podcasts and just about every major convention that Marvel was presenting at. They found the right studio in Kabam to take on an ambitious mobile game.

 

On the development side Chris "Cuz" Parry was a huge fan of comics, but he was also known for rewriting the skateboard game genre. In a few years The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series had earned almost half a billion dollars for Activision. The publisher then drove series into the ground (same thing could be said of the music game Rock Band). Fans were feeling burned out on the annual releases with the same tired mechanics. At the tail-end of Hawk's legacy the rival studio EA introduced a different type of game, known as SKATE. It was a breath of fresh air. It was several years in development. During the decline of Hawk franchise when many other skateboarding games came, and went. EA's title turned out to be more realistic, and more in tune with how skateboarding had progressed. Parry was working for Black Box studio then, and was a good reason why the game was a hit. He stayed in Vancouver and went over to Kabam where he helped redefine the mobile fighting game. First with Marvel Contest of Champions, and later on with the Transformers Forged to Fight.

 

Kabam Creative / Art Director Gabriel Frizzera was possibly the most influential of the new faces. The Brazilian grew up on a diet of comic books and dreamed that some day he would also be a creator. Little did he know just how much of an impact he would have. He collaborated with Marvel Writer Sam Humphries on shaping the Contest of Champions. The series started small but little by little Kabam released new characters, and features in the form of Chapters. The game had over 40 million downloads, a certifiable hit when it debuted in 2015. It passed $100 million in revenue that first year. That was more than double what Marvel Future Fight had generated in the same year. It may sound odd considering that MCC was free to download, and free to play. Like many of the most popular mobile games it actually made revenue from micro transactions. Audiences could spend a dollar here and there to unlock rare items, and collectibles. They could also "grind" at the game and earn these things over weeks of playing. Think about how people could spend $6 on coffee every day without thinking about it. Paying 99 cents for an in-game item was a bargain. Now multiply that occasional dollar across 40+ million downloads. As of this blog post MCC ranked 38th on the top grossing iPhone games, earning over $60,000 a day in revenue (10 times the revenue of Marvel Future Fight). But those daily totals could change overnight with the release of a new Marvel movie.

 

In 2017 Marvel Contest of Champions was ranked the eighth most successful Android game, earning over $170 million from its customers. The title had been the #1 ranked free to play game on several occasions. It recaptured the #1 spot, when it passed $3.1 million in player spending on July 4, 2018. Thanks to the introduction of the Ant-Man and Wasp. It coincided with the release of the movie. For the month prior to that it was still earning over $640,000 per day. There was another spike on Cyber Monday in 2018 when it earned over $3 million in one day. Estimates that the Contest of Champions had generated over $400 million since its debut could be very conservative. Kabam and Marvel were sitting on a cash cow. As confidence in the developers grew Kabam was granted more creative freedom. A 10-issue Marvel Contest of Champions comic book was released in 2015. A new collaboration was long overdue. Frizzera and Marvel artist Luke Ross worked together on the Digital Comic, The Young Elders Tale in 2018.

Frizzera created a unique backstory to the Collector, and turned the eccentric Elder of the Universe into one of the more sympathetic figures. It would not be the only thing that he and Kabam were allowed to create in the MCC sandbox. We shall explore how the Contest of Champions created a template for successful comic book mobile games in the next blog. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Marvel Contest of Champions Legacy, part 4...

 

Thanos was a frightening villain in the comics, cartoons, and movies. Obsessed with Death, as in the physical embodiment of Death, the Mad Titan didn't see a problem destroying reality and reshaping it to his ideal. In order to do this he needed to tap into resources far older, and more powerful than his own. This was when the Infinity Gems, and Infinity Gauntlet came into play. The origins of the Infinity Gems were not the same in the live action movies, they actually went back to when the Marvel universe was still evolving. The first Infinity Gem, the Soul Gem appeared in Marvel Premier #1 in 1972. The comic written by Roy Thomas and the penciled by Gil Kane introduced audiences to a gold skinned alien known as Adam Warlock, owner of the stone. The other gems were introduced a few at a time over the next several years. All six would not appear until a Silver Surfer story from 1988. The majority of these gems were owned by one of the Elders of the Universe. There were almost two dozen Elders that had been revealed in Marvel continuity, but only a few had the Infinity Gems. The Elders were extremely powerful, even without the gems. Nobody thought however about how powerful one would become if they possessed all of the gems. That changed a few years later. Adam Warlock was acting as a cosmic detective, investigating the movements of Thanos. The clues were pointing to something catastrophic.

   

The original Thanos Quest, written by Jim Starlin, and penciled by Ron Lim, was a story from 1990. Starlin used to write and draw for Marvel in the '70s and had done a lot of the cosmic world building back then. He was keenly aware of the Infinity Gems and had plans to use them, but it wouldn't happen for decades. Not until he returned to the Marvel Bullpen. In his story he had Thanos scour the cosmos and take each Infinity Gem from the Elders, one at a time, often by tricking them. The Soul Gem he got from the In-Betweener, an agent and prisoner of Lord Chaos and Master Order. The Power Gem from the Champion of the Universe, an Elder that was like a blue-skinned, nine-foot tall Hulk Hogan. The Time Gem he got from the Gardener, and Space Gem from the Runner. The final two he got from the most familiar Elders. The Reality Gem from the Collector, and finally the Mind Gem from the Grandmaster. Each gem was capable of shaping a portion of reality to the will of its owner. All six combined were incalculably powerful. I was glad to see the Champion introduced into the game at the end of 2018. His martial prowess, and arrogance was legendary. I was sure he could easily hold his own in the contest, but I digress.

   

The Thanos Quest planted the seeds for a longer saga. It was something that Marvel editors played close to their chest and surprised the comic community. Marvel readers didn’t expect there to be a series with the gravitas of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Marvel would debut the Infinity Gauntlet in 1991, the Infinity War in 1992 and the Infinity Crusade in 1993. I remember when my little brother read the first few pages of the Thanos Quest he told my older brother and I that if Thanos wasn't stopped he would probably come to Earth and wipe out all of the heroes. We laughed at the idea. There was no way Thanos could stop the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, or Inhumans. We figured that any one of those super-powered teams would be enough to beat him. Heck, the Silver Surfer was arguably the most powerful cosmic hero. He could have stopped Thanos by himself. Fans expected MCC to give audiences another take on the Infinity War. This was when Kabam took things one step further.

 

The Contest of Champions was not just an adaptation of the Infinity War, but instead something more spectacular. It pulled together characters from different timelines, different dimensions, different realities, and dropped them into the middle of a new battle. This new showcase featured the alternate reality where Erik “Killmonger” Stevens was the King of Wakanda. He possessed something called the Infinity Claw, a gauntlet made of ornate vibranium, and had disposed of T’Challa, the Black Panther. The Battlerealm had its own Infinity Gems which were different than the ones Thanos originally claimed. In the Kabam title these gems were Evolution, Genesis, Chaos, War, Nightmare, and Death. They also shaped reality in different ways. The fight for power was on a scale not previously seen in any comic book or movie. From a fan perspective it was the best of all worlds. How this happened was an act of trust between multiple companies, and departments. At the heart of the project were a few faces that you should know about. Chief among these people was Kabam Creative / Art Director Gabriel Frizzera.

   

No less important was Creative Director Chris "Cuz" Parry, Design Director Tim Molyneux, Marvel Games Executive Creative Director Bill Rosemann and Marvel New Media Vice President and Creative Executive Ryan Penagos. This group worked well together, and accomplished something seemingly impossible. A mobile game that honored the Marvel canon, was able to keep up with the television, and film IP, and was still was fun to play. Very rarely had so many different branches of a major company worked so well together with a developer. The reason why was because everyone associated with the project was a die-hard Marvel fan. They knew the stories forward and backwards. They also knew that video games based on comic books were not always good. They were around when some of the worst Marvel games, like Captain America and the Avengers were released, but also when some of the best like the X-Men was in arcades.

   

There was enough creative freedom to allow Kabam to essentially add an entirely new chapter to the Marvel portfolio. All of the men pictured above were relatively young for their positions, they had grown up knowing the best stories from the '80s, and '90s. They saw what it took to make a good comic,  super hero movie, or game. They were able to bring that love, avoid the pitfalls, and corner the mobile market, even above the Marvel Future Fight game. In the next blog we will look at how solid leadership could make all the difference in the world. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!