Talk:Marvel Games

Sort by year?

I think this list would be better if the games were sorted by year. Like List of Marvel Comics movies rst20xx 14:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

yes and i can helpNarutorules^o^ 19:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Article title move

Hi Iftekharahmed96, about your title move here, even though I understand the ratio, I think that the new title does no longer reflect the content of the table. In fact, this contains many titles published by others and still based on Marvel characters. I think that Marvel Games, as a publishing brand, should have a separate article, similarly to what happens with List of films based on Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios. I would, therefore, encourage you to revert the name of the article and, in case, create a new article for the publisher. What do you think? --Tanonero (msg) 11:03, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi there (msg), thanks for taking the opportunity to respond to me regarding this as oppose to outright reverting it. Ever since the division's inception, Marvel Games has always been a licensing label (like Disney Interactive), they're involved in all the video games based on Marvel Comics, but are not directly credited. In the introduction of the article, it states that the games published before the incorporation of Marvel Games was by Marvel Entertainment Group (the legal Marvel company before bankruptcy) and Marvel Enterprises/Marvel Entertainment (the legal Marvel company after bankruptcy). Marvel Games was incorporated in 2009 as shown by their Twitter account being activated then, alongside them talking about X-Men Origins: Wolverine as the first game they promoted on Twitter. Having separate articles is not only illogical because there's not enough citations to justify it, but there's too much overlap not for the two to merge. Iftekharahmed96 (talk) 21:55, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi there, thank you for your reply. I just realised you had answered, so please next time ping me. As you surely know, because of the way Wikipedia works, we can't afford to give credit to statement such as "they're involved in all the video games based on Marvel Comics, but are not directly credited". We either can source the credits, or source the fact that they weren't credited yet they were involved. That being said, I think that the real problem is that there a bunch of games in there, such as the Men in Black ones, that weren't published by either Marvel Studios, nor any other previous Marvel label. The way you titled the page, make it now mandatory for the listed games to have a linking with Marvel as a gaming publisher. So, we either get back to the previous title (in which games such as MIBs have a right to stay as somewhat based on Marvel comics) or we clean up the list with games clearly published within such labels. I'm happy either way. What do you think? --Tanonero (msg) 14:02, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Hey there @Tanonero:, it would have been more appropriate for you to tag me in the talk page of Marvel Games and discuss about the article matter there. Anyway, if you go on the Twitter account for Marvel games, you can see that the account was created on March 2009. I used advanced search to see what the account was promoting and found that the account is actively promoting all Marvel games that came out from 2009 onwards. Here's the official website for Marvel Games (https://www.marvel.com/games) which as you can see, is the Games section of Marvel Entertainment. Unfortunately, there are not any third party sites that I can find that talk about Marvel Games as a legal entity, but Marvel themselves uses the division to promote all of their video games, as Marvel Games is Marvel's video game brand. I stress that we clean up the list based on the different Marvel labels, because Marvel has been directly involved with all of their video games, it just so happens that Marvel has been legally incorporated as different companies throughout the years. To make things easier, I am happily willing to help with the editing process. Iftekharahmed96 (talk) 20:10, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Iftekharahmed96:, as you suggested I moved the discussion here so that others can follow more easily. So, if I have understood correctly, your standpoint is that all Marvel licensees belong to this (newly titled) page as they saw the involvement of some Marvel's video game branch, be it Marvel Entertainment or the more specialised Marvel Games. However we can't demonstrate the (extent of the) involvement because there aren't official credits for these. The moment we introduced a publishing brand in the title we need to demonstrate clear links with all the entries (that's why the page had a more generic title). I try to breakdown my concerns around this while asking more specific questions that can help bring the discussion forward.

• You said that "Marvel has been directly involved with all of their video games". How do we know this? What video games are theirs? Is selling the rights to portray the characters the same as being involved? If anything, in the intro we should disclose what is the criterion for inclusion in the list (which was being based on Marvel comics characters).
• What happened before 1986?
• What do we do with entries such as Man in Black in which Marvel doesn't seem to be involved even at the licensing level?
• If we go with this change (and whatever criterion we adopt), I no longer think we have to specify each label for each entry, as long as the active period of each label is clearly stated in the intro (and it is, even though we needs sources for those). --Tanonero (msg) 18:06, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for transferring the discussion to the article page. I’m happily willing to answer all of the concerns that you have so far.

• Video games based on Marvel Comics are categorised as Tie-in. Tie-in’s are products that are designed to directly cross promote another product. In this case, all these Marvel games are video games that are promoting a Marvel Comics intellectual property, be it Spider-Man, X-Men or The Avengers. By that definition, Marvel will always be directly involved with the adaptation of their intellectual property, because they own the rights to all their characters in video game formats. A comparable example is Disney Interactive, this is the division that handles licensing for all of Disney’s video games like their own tie-in’ video games based on Disney movies, which were published by THQ, or Kingdom Hearts, a franchise developed and published by Square Enix, but owned by Disney. Disney owns these properties despite not having direct publishing credits, because Disney and other Hollywood media brands like to stick with a licensing model for strategic purposes.

• In regards to licensing, I recommend that you read the article on Licensing, and Software license, but all it boils down to is that Marvel is letting third parties use their intellectual properties, and Marvel makes money out of the licensing fees and a portion of the profits. In layman terms, it’s leasing. Let’s take EA’s Star Wars games as an example. Disney leases the Star Wars license to EA for video games, and as part of this agreement, EA is responsible for development and promotion as if it were their own game. For you to say that Marvel game is "selling" their character is incorrect, because a sale is a transaction of a product from one party to another. Marvel is not selling the rights of their video games, they are just lending it. With the software licensing model, the original owner of the intellectual property is still involved. For Marvel’s sake, Marvel Games is the division that deals with this.

• Well, 1986 was the establishment of Marvel Entertainment Group as a legal entity (Marvel Entertainment's predecessor), and it was the holding company for Marvel Comics. Before then, Marvel Comics was under Magazine Management, a shell company owned by Cadence Industries. Magazine Management was re-branded as Marvel Comics Group and merged with Marvel Comics to make the combined entity called Marvel Comics Group (basically, Marvel Comics went through a consolidated merger). If you look at the period between 1982-1985, the only publishers were Parker Brothers and Adventure International. The only brand that could have handled video games then would have been Marvel Comics Group (Marvel Comics).

• Regarding Men in Black, read Malibu Comics. Basically, Aircel Comics created Men in Black. The company were bought by Malibu Comics only to be bought by Marvel Comics, thus, making any comic franchises that were originally owned by Malibu Comics to be owned by Marvel Comics, with Men in Black being one of them. Though it’s questionable as to who holds the license for Men in Black because Marvel is not affiliated with the intellectual property due to ownership complications.

• I'd love to find sources for the different era’s of Marvel licensing strategy for video games, but the problem is, there’s literally little to nothing on Marvel Games outside Marvel’s official website and their Twitter account. I was able to identify the divisions location through LinkedIn, and said location is where Disney Interactive is located in. The reason why I know why these different Marvel labels controlled the video game licensing, because they were the holdings company brands for Marvel Comics during their respective era’s, thus they dealt with video games before Marvel Games was incorporated.

Hopefully all of this information provides the context you require regarding your concerns. Iftekharahmed96 (talk) 00:35, 26 November 2018 (UTC)