With the huge news that Marvel and all its 5,000ish characters are now owned by Disney, videogame license deals now rest fully with Mickey Mouse’s executives.
As deals ”sunset” they’ll be reviewing each of them to ”exploit” the character library more broadly. Disney boss Bob Iger praised ”some smart licensing” already in place with Marvel.
”On the video game front, (Marvel) have some smart licensing agreements with some of the best video game manufacturers in the business,” said Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, reports Kotaku.
”While we have been steadily moving in the direction of video game integration, we don’t rule out the blend of licensing and self-produced and distributed video games,” he said, adding, ”As these licensing deals expire we have the luxury of considering what’s best for the company and the products.”
Currently Activision, Sega, Gazillion and THQ all have links with Marvel through licensing. Acti’s deal goes on until 2017 for Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Wolverine titles. Gazllion Entertainment has licensing rights for MMO properties until 2019. Sega has a multi-year agreement for Marvel movies and the same goes for THQ with Marvel’s Super Hero Squad.
”As the current agreements in place sunset we will look to exploit the library of characters more broadly,” Disney CFO Tom Staggs said. ”This is a big library of properties and we think there is real opportunity. We plan to evaluate where those opportunities are greatest and how we can leverage those across both Marvel and Disney.”
So for now there are no immediate plans to assume all development of Marvel videogames by Disney, which has been keen to ramp up its production of top tier games. Has the $4bn Disney buyout of Marvel got you all in a fluster?
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