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Why did Marvel Heroes shut down in 2017?

Disney ended the licence. Then Gazillion's creditors ended Gazillion, and the game died a month ahead of its announced date.

On November 15, 2017, Disney, which owned Marvel, confirmed the closure in a statement carried the same day by Polygon and first reported by Kotaku: "We regret to inform our Marvel Heroes fans that we have ended our relationship with Gazillion Entertainment, and that the Marvel Heroes games will be shut down." Disney gave no reason in that statement, and this page does not invent one. What is documented is the sequence that followed.

The same day, Gazillion posted its own farewell on the game's homepage: "The Marvel Heroes servers will stay on until Dec 31, 2017, and we'll be removing real money purchases as soon as possible." Players were promised a free sunset period of about six weeks. Omega was removed from the North American PlayStation store almost immediately, though anyone who already had the game could keep playing it.

The studio did not survive to run that sunset. On November 22, reporting based on a termination letter from CEO Dave Dohrmann said banking creditors had pulled the plug on the company's funding, and staff were terminated the day before Thanksgiving. GamesBeat, reporting on November 24, confirmed the studio had shut that Wednesday, with employees saying there was no severance and no payout of earned time off. On November 27, 2017, Gazillion's closing statement, posted through the game's own account, said it was "no longer able to operate Marvel Heroes Omega until December 31 as originally planned" and that the game would be "sunset immediately on all platforms." The servers and website went offline that afternoon, a little after 11 a.m. Pacific.

THE LAST SIX WEEKS

October to November 2017

The warning signs, October 2017

Documented at the time: Gazillion missed its regular Friday community updates, the annual Halloween event never ran, promised Thor: Ragnarok tie-in content never appeared, and community staff departed while the studio went silent.

November 15: the licence ends

Disney's statement ended the relationship with Gazillion and announced the games would shut down. Gazillion's homepage set the date: December 31, 2017, with real-money purchases to be removed as soon as possible.

November 22 to 23: the studio closes

Staff terminations were reported on November 22 and confirmed by employees' own posts: no severance, no paid time off payout, medical coverage ending within days. GamesBeat dates the studio shutdown to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

November 27: a month early

Gazillion announced its own closing and the immediate sunset. Servers and website went offline that afternoon. The console edition, Omega, had launched on June 30, less than five months earlier.

The refunds

Players who had bought content demanded refunds, and the platform holders moved: Xbox users received full refunds, and PlayStation users who had purchased in the August to October 2017 window received refunds as well, per the reference record.

Reported, not established

Former employees publicly accused CEO Dave Dohrmann of inappropriate conduct toward female employees during the silent weeks. Gazillion answered that the company was functioning normally and called the claims unsubstantiated internet accusations. Whether the accusations caused Disney's decision was never stated by Disney, and former employee Anthony Gallegos separately said the Marvel contract had been lost in October and console revenue had missed its target. Both accounts are reported here as reports, not as the documented cause.

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

Marvel Heroes

Marvel Heroes · Key art

Key art for Marvel Heroes, the game whose 2017 shutdown this page reconstructs.

What is Marvel Heroes?What did Diablo's creator change?

Why did Marvel Heroes shut down in 2017?

THE LAST SIX WEEKS

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

THE FIRST WORD