Marvel Rivals Dev Says Hero Shooters Need a Really Strong Hook to Convince Fans to Ditch the Game They’re Already Playing

ign.com:

The director of Marvel Rivals has discussed the difficulty of successfully entering the packed hero shooter market, pointing to failures like Concord as evidence of the increasing need to have a strong hook that helps convince players to ditch the game they're already invested in for something new.

Sony’s Concord is one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation history, lasting just a couple of weeks before it was brought offline amid eye-wateringly low player numbers. Sony later decided to kill the game entirely, and shut its developer.

Concord was the latest in a string of recent hero shooter flops, which includes Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Post-launch content for that game comes to an end early 2025, just a year after launch, having left a $200 million hole in publisher Warner Bros.’ finances.

NetEase’s Marvel Rivals, however, appears to have avoided a similar fate. It is a free-to-play live service hero shooter in the Overwatch style and benefits from the power of the Marvel brand, but it clearly clicked with the audience, hitting an impressive 10 million players in just three days.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, Marvel Rivals game director Thaddeus Sasser said Concord “didn’t bring any unique value proposition,” which contributed to its failure. But speaking more generally about the hero shooter market, Sasser said live service games need a hook to convince players of already successful hero shooters to jump ship having already invested their time and money in those games.

“There’s a switching cost,” Sasser said. “I’ve already invested in Overwatch, I’ve got 15 skins for Pharah, I’m not going anywhere.”

Ultimately, Sasser said, the market is incredibly difficult to predict, and game developers never know how popular their game will be until it’s actually out.

“As a game developer you’re always worried until the audience has responded,” Sasser continued. “The truth is that I don’t think anybody can accurately predict this or the game