Let us take a gander at a lot of the speculated reasons behind the future of the MvC Series. I guess it's long overdue that I make such a thing. To start, I will say I agree with Neoxon about why Origins is still up and why Capcom relinquished the rights.
Shared "Marvel Gaming Universe" Theory/Rumor - Unsubstantiated
Source - TQ Jefferson, Marvel VP of Games
You might have noticed that certain similarities and threads touch from one game to the next, said TQ Jefferson, Marvels VP of games, regarding new developments in Marvels gaming space. Much like you see in publishing and film, were trying to build a gaming universe connected by common elements and narrative into a larger gaming initiative.
So how well does this hold up beyond conjecture? What does this mean beyond "yeah some of our games will use some of the same IPs and associated concepts"? At this same event they were praising Avengers Alliance, a F2P game that's been out forever and not taken down alongside many other titles were in December of 2013.
Arguably, this was just hinting at Disney Infinity 2.0. Beyond that, how more similar are these games that have continued to receive updates and/or have been announced since aforementioned comments were made?:
- Disney Infinity 2.0
- Various movie tie-in iOS games, even for competitive cinema properties
- Marvel Heroes
- Spider-Man Unlimited
- Marvel Contest of Champions
The answer? Not much. They all use Marvel characters and, most notably to MvC, take their own narrative liberties and skew outside of Marvel Studios characters.
But what if it's just iOS games that skirt by this new ideology/rule? - Possible, unlikely because of the presence of Infinity
It appears sort of illogical to assume that no matter how lucrative or strong the venture/opportunity, Marvel would throw all that aside to maintain whatever nondescript narrative which Disney Infinity 2.0 otherwise contains. For all we know, this just means you need to represent the Avengers in the game. And why not, when they are culturally relevant characters that fans of all kinds would want?
We forget that MvC3 was almost prophetic in terms of the direction of the MCU, was released while The Avengers was in production, and still churned out a pretty diverse cast that used more than Marvel Studios properties. Do I think Marvel Games knew all there was to know about the MCU at that time? No, because much was just between Feige and select others at that time. Similarly, I think the force exerted by Marvel Studios on the games division is much less than assumed because of the diverse casts we've seen in games regardless since the MCU broke out. Yeah, Marvel Studios has favourites, but they consistently make exceptions and let properties they know are big breathe, partly because they can still use those strong brands for direct profit (games) and indirect profit (merchandising) as well. Contest of Champions is the biggest thing contradicting the idea of a completely Marvel Studios cast, featuring Spider-Man himself front and centre on their website.
Make no mistake. Money makes sense.
Capcom and Marvel have a damaged relationship because of the shitty contract! - Mixed, logically unsound
The assumption that the contract was shitty is just kind of strange. I mean, yeah, they don't get to throw out shit willy nilly, but that's because
it's not their IP. And the IP they're dealing with here is a multibillion dollar one. That multibillion dollar IP having a quite significant pull when it comes to representations in other media is not unusual, nor is Capcom the only victim of this. The contract is what it is, and as the years go on people just seem to project more of their desires into all of the stuff we don't know about the contract to fill in the blanks. Yeah, it worked out pretty shitty for the MvC community, but business is business.
Svensson,
who negotiated the MvC3 deal and project, and described himself as the primary relationship holder with Marvel, is no longer at Capcom and left about a year ago. Doom and gloom time? Maybe. Most likely not; he's likely not the only person to built a relationship between the two companies, and the idea of both companies backing away from doing business because he's he's not there sounds more unlikely than likely.
The flipside? Post-MvC3 Seth Killian, former community director at Capcom, said that Capcom still had a good relationship with Marvel. Which is immediately apparent leading into UMvC3 and beyond as the Marvel team was super enthused and it's hard to see why not. It is probably the most prolific game to use the Marvel IP, and one with the greatest sales, and there is no reason why Marvel wouldn't jump on the opportunity, even if they Avengerize it.
- Possible, but thinking about this in the context of now is doing it wrong
Now, as far as I can tell from financial reports, Capcom being a sinking ship is greatly exaggerated and they've still put up profits the past few years. I'm not sure why co-development is seen as an indicator that a company is "broke," just because you have a partner that is willing to subsidize costs. That sounds advantageous for me, especially if it ends up being more lucrative than making it multiplatform, which you pretty much have no way of knowing unless you're a Capcom shareholder. There is reason to believe Capcom is currently focusing effort on their 6 breadwinner IPs, and I even think they stated it outright, but this would obviously mean a SF should come before an MvC. We've heard all these rumblings about Capcom not being able to fund SFV in very close proximity to when the game was announced, so a bit of skepticism is required here when reading into these statements, and less assumption about where they are allocating an unknown amount of money to an unknown number of projects.
Why would they put out MvC4 or even start talking about it before SFV is out? Makes no sense, agreed? SFV was just announced and we initially got estimates that it was much further off. As a general rule, we should learn not to take so much stock into "you might not see another iteration until exact year here." These comments are inherently speculative and should not be confused with formal announcements.
That said, when Seth said that the franchise needs time to breathe, the genre was getting very saturated. 2011/2012 probably had the most fighting games released ever, and that included TWO MvC titles in the span of a year. Something Capcom caught a lot of flak for, and it might even be further damaging if they bring out another so soon, and before SFV. It does not make sense right now. The MCU isn't going to die out tomorrow, so there isn't really an urgency to strike while the iron is hot. Now is clearly not the right time for Capcom as far as positioning their brand and releases goes, and who knows for Marvel.
So when will we get it, and when is best for Capcom? Why should Marvel care?
Ideally, a few years out from SFV, just how MvC3 was. But things are different now, we might get it earlier. It all depends on Capcom's momentum moving forward with SFV and whether they make that link between companies again. It is in both of their interests because MvC is a multimillion unit franchise for both of them, but we really don't know how Disney's licensing works now or what Capcom is planning. For all we know, it's in pre-production already.
All we can do is wait and see, unfortunately, and try not to get misguided by unfounded totalitarian-Disney rumours or particularly weak & unsupported arguments for why an MvC4 is unlikely. Make no mistake, I believe an MvC4 will only happen when the stars, interests and schedules (remember, MvC3 and UMvC3 release periods were determined by Marvel) of both companies align, but it's so mutually beneficial and makes sense for both their money and portfolios that it seems way more likely that we'll see it soon than we'll see Disney fold or SFV not do well.
Also general lol @ anyone believing they'd rather work with WB/NRS on an off-colour wannabe that'll sell less than the real deal with a company they already have a working relationship with.
. I want this more than SF5 tbh.