Why the Marvel MMO became just NO

Anytime you have a gaming conference (like the DICE Summit), you have the potential to talk to tons of developers, producers and directors, and get useful tidbits of knowledge about upcoming games. MTV Multiplayer took the opportunity to talk to Microsoft's Shane Kim about why the deal with EA for a Marvel MMO was scrapped, and it essentially boiled down to success versus failure. In the interview, Kim confirmed what we already knew, that the much anticipated Marvel MMO was canceled. When asked why it was canceled, he said it wasn't necessarily anything that went wrong, rather, they didn't have the highest hopes for its success. "When we first entered into the development and agreement of the development of ‘Marvel Universe Online,’ we thought we would create another subscription-based MMO. And if you really look at the data there’s basically one that’s successful and everything else wouldn’t meet our level or definition of commercial success. And then you have to look [and say]: ‘Can we change the business model for that? Is that really viable given how far we are in development? And so forth. Does Marvel want to do that?’ There’s a whole bunch of factors.” So instead of saying something like "we scrapped it because everyone can't be Spider-man" or something like that, I think I would've been ok with the cancellation. But the fact that he said it was scrapped because they didn't think they could make any money on it? That's a little unfortunate if you ask me. Why the Marvel MMO was canceled