The superhero MMO Marvel Heroes 2015 will probably rename itself every year to attract new tests and attention from gaming magazines.
When Marvel Heroes was released, it received a thrashing. The game just wasn’t very good. Reviewers took a look at it, found a lot to criticize, wrote their reviews: 58 points on the review aggregator Meta-Critic as a result. This is roughly equivalent to a 4 or 5+.
At Gazillion, they rolled up their sleeves, worked hard for success, and released new patches week after week. A fan base formed around the superhero brawler with Diablo in its DNA and a Marvel license in its back. The game improved significantly, but hardly anyone outside the fan base noticed. The 58 on Meta-Critic remained an indelible mark.
Gaming press has not yet adapted to new models
The problem behind this, explained David Brevik in an interview with gamesauce, is the gaming press. They looked at a game upon release and then not again, no matter how much the developers worked on it.
Normally, gaming magazines would come back for a new expansion to test, but since Marvel Heroes received weekly patches and everything was offered for free in the game, there was no thought of such a thing. They simply had no expansion to promote.
The gaming magazines had not yet adjusted to the new model of a “live service,” according to Brevik.
With the new name, the testers returned to Marvel Heroes
Therefore, they opted for a “rebranding”, transforming Marvel Heroes into Marvel Heroes 2015 last year; the gaming magazines came back, conducted a test – and the Meta-Critic rating shot up from 58 to 81.
This “rebranding” is now planned annually, similar to how sports games also release with a new number every year. But whether it will be called “Marvel Heroes 2016” is still uncertain. They are likely to rename the game again at the end of the year, again to “rebrand”, and it will coincide with a major patch.
Brevik now knows what they did wrong back then: They absolutely should have launched it as “beta”, then players and press would have tolerated much more.
