Director Ryota Niitsuma of MvC3 reveals each franchise is "heavily guarded by its individual producer." There's no rubber stamping among Capcom teams.
Naturally the game calls for a wide range of notables from both Marvel and Capcom's world of IP but that doesn't mean the publisher's own teams are just throwing their characters into the pot - the MvC3 team had to run a gauntlet or two first.
"In terms of Marvel characters we pushed for Shuma-Goroth - that’s one of Capcom’s favourite Marvel characters and he appeared in MvC 2," said producer and director Ryota Niitsuma. Marvel is notoriously paranoid about their IP going to third-parties.
"We really wanted him but Marvel were quite reluctant to have him in the game because they felt there were more appropriate characters that could fill that slot out of the limited number that could be included in the game."
"In the end our passion was acknowledged by Marvel and they’ve allowed us to include him as DLC," continued Niitsuma-san. Capcom's own internal studios are no less cautious when it comes to sharing their creations and iconic heroes.
"In terms of Capcom characters we wanted to push for one of the most popular franchise heroes we have which is Dante from Devil May Cry," he said.
"There was a lot of work involved in this. People seem to think that because it’s internal that it’s easy but in fact within Capcom each franchise is heavily guarded by its individual producer. We had to have a pretty lengthy conversation with the producer of DMC but we finally won approval from him to have Dante from Devil May Cry 3 in the game."
Check out our full interview with Capcom producer and director Ryota Niitsuma. Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds releases on Xbox 360 and PS3 February 15th.