Marvel heroes meet up on Facebook
‘Avengers Alliance’ game will play into comics’ history
The Avengers are assembling on Facebook. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and the rest of Marvel Comics’ mightiest superhero squad will be joined by others such as Wolverine and Spider-man, plus villains including Green Goblin and Loki, in Avengers Assemble, Marvel’s first Facebook game, to launch within the next three months.
In the free-to-play strategy game, you’re a trainee in world-police organization S.H.I.E.L.D., charged with assembling a team to face a cataclysmic event .
S.H.I.E.L.D. and leader Nick Fury realize they “need to call in The Avengers. The Avengers arrive and take one look at the situation and realize they need to call in everyone,” says TQ Jefferson, vice president of games production for Marvel Entertainment. “You’ll see not just the core Avengers, but characters like Wolverine, Spider-man and characters from the Fantastic Four. When the Avengers call, everyone comes.”
The game is the first product of an alliance created by Disney’s $4 billion acquisition of Marvel two years ago and purchase of social-game maker Playdom in July 2010.
Playdom and Marvel actually were developing the game before Disney’s acquisitions. “With all these interesting confluences, we knew this product had to be different,” says Mike Rubinelli of Disney Interactive Media Group. It “couldn’t just be a casual click-fest.”
The developers aim to attract fans of Marvel comics and films (including The Avengers, due May 4). “We want to reach a mainstream audience but keep the world and intellectual property authentic so the core audience is not alienated,” says Playdom’s Chia Chin Lee.
At the outset of the game, players learn to customize their character with accessories and weapons, and are instructed in battle. “That character will go right into the game and fight alongside Spider-man or Thor and Black Widow,” Jefferson says. “We want to make the game approachable.”
Like other social-network games, users are rewarded for playing with friends and can pay a few dollars to progress more quickly. “If you want to accelerate recruiting of heroes, you could buy gold to get more command points,” Lee says, or train your heroes faster.
Hard-core fans will revel in the appearance of more than 100 characters. “You don’t need to know 75 years of Marvel continuity to understand what is going on,” Jefferson says, “but if you do, those elements are in there.”