Damn, that sucks for real. I wonder what prompted the budget cut??? IMO, it seems like Activision deliberately gives these guys the short end of the stick. I can't wait till Activision loses the rights to Spidey and another developer could pick them up. Who do you guys think could deliver a better Spidey experience, we all know Rocksteady could, any others? I'm wondering what Square Enix could do if they were given the opportunity to do a Spider-Man game
Activision (and Capcom) both lost their licenses for their respective Marvel characters on January 1, 2014. The ONLY reason that we got this game (and we'll get ASM 3 as well) is because Sony decided to stick with Activision/Beenox instead of picking someone else. Marvel decided to join the ride too since Beenox personally asked them.
At this point, the only thing holding Spider-Man's movie games back is Sony Pictures.
Marvel and Disney now retain the rights to Spidey's comic book games, but as I said in a previous post here, we'll most likely never see a GOOD comic book Spider-Man game like we all want simply because Marvel wants to promote characters they can make movies out of. Since Marvel can't make movies of Spidey, don't expect games for him either unless they're about the movies themselves.
Anybody NOT named Activision could do better because just about EVERY other publisher gives a damn about quality.
I can see you haven't done much mobile gaming. :P There are so many developers who do mobile games that fit that bill MUCH worse than anything Activision has ever done.
For example, King, the makers of Candy Crush put a ****ing trademark on the word "candy" and then went after absolutely ANY company using the term. They realized they'd have to eventually go against Hasbro since they own Candy Land...they then backed off and removed the trademark.
Gameloft is another fun one. They love IAP (in-app payments). Yes, you can buy their game for $4.99-$9.99, but expect to pay up to $50+ in IAPs once you've bought the game. In fact, if you don't shell out real money, expect to have your experience cut short.
King loves IAPs as well, as you have to either have a lot of friends who play the game to help you progress OR you pay your way through.
Zynga is also crap as well. Their motto is to rip off popular games (seriously, they unashamedly said this in an interview on Dateline or 20/20...one of those two). When they do this, they spam your device with "deals" to make you pay for things to continue.
Then there are the good companies like GungHo who created Puzzle and Dragons. I personally play that game just about every day and can tell you without a doubt that it's possible to get good monsters and whatnot via just freeplay. You CAN pay upwards of thousands of dollars to get the best stuff (and people have done so...seriously), but you really don't need to if you're both skilled and patient.
Gameloft seems to be Sony's go-to mobile developer for Spider-Man movie games. They made ASM 2 on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. It's FILLED with IAPs. The game itself is what...$5-$7 but then you have to continue to shell out upwards of $15+ just to get suits.
Activision, compared to mobile publishers/developers, is nothing. Sure they suck, but I've seen so much worse.
