XPost: rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe, rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks,   
   sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.politics.homosexuality   
   From: murray@seattle.com   
      
   Gazillion Entertainment shut down on Wednesday just ahead of the   
   Thanksgiving holiday, according to Kotaku. The move to lay off   
   all staff came after Disney severed ties with the company and   
   announced that Gazillion’s Marvel Heroes game would shut down.   
      
   The game was originally due to shut on December 31, but the   
   company also got hit with a lot of requests for refunds, Kotaku   
   said. Gazillion didn’t make an announcement, but numerous   
   employees relayed what they were told.   
      
   Today we were told no severance. Not even paying out PTO. Good   
   job, Gaz. I feared this would happen so I appreciate all the   
   support you’ve given to shasta :https://t.co/aWyk0ja8Jh   
      
   — Anthony Gallegos (@Chufmoney) November 23, 2017   
   https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js   
      
   The employees said they are not being paid severance or paid   
   time off, and that their medical insurance ends next week. In a   
   statement, Disney had said earlier, “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. We would like to sincerely thank the players who   
   joined the Marvel Heroes community, and will provide any further   
   updates as they become available.”   
      
   It’s a sad Thanksgiving for those associated with the company,   
   which has had a rich history. The San Mateo, Calif.-based   
   Gazillion had legendary ambitions as a maker of massively   
   multiplayer online role-playing games.   
      
   Rob Hutter, the former head of Revolution Ventures, founded   
   Gazillion with Doom co-creator John Romero in 2005 in an effort   
   to create MMO games that could rival Blizzard’s World of   
   Warcraft. Over time, Hutter raised more than $250 million for   
   Gazillion, and he got the deal for a Marvel MMO in 2009.   
   Previously, Cryptic Studios had a license to make a Marvel MMO,   
   but that game was cancelled in 2007. MMOs proved to be hard to   
   make and World of Warcraft was the toughest of rivals.   
      
   Romero’s own game was canceled and his Slipgate Ironworks   
   division was shut down. About a year after that, Romero left.   
   The industry also shifted from premium subscription games to   
   free-to-play online games with microtransactions. That prompted   
   big changes at Gazillion, which at its peak had more than 350   
   employees.   
      
   David Brevik, co-creator of Diablo and one of the former   
   Blizzard North leaders, spent 6.5 years at the company. In early   
   2011, Brevik was named president and chief operating officer of   
   Gazillion. Shortly after that, John Needham, former head of   
   Cryptic Studios, replaced Hutter as CEO in 2011. One of the   
   games that Gazillion shipped was Marvel Super Hero Squad, built   
   by the now-defunct The Amazing Society studio in Seattle. That   
   studio was run by Jason Robar and Jay Minn, and they focused on   
   creating a family-friendly Marvel game for kids. Their game   
   helped keep Gazillion afloat.   
      
   Brevik’s game was a version for adults, and it was renamed   
   Marvel Heroes. It launched in 2013. Around that time, David   
   Dohrmann, a board member who was then at Roth Capital Partners,   
   and investors at Oak Investment Partners recapitalized the   
   company, meaning they took control and put more money into the   
   firm. Brevik became CEO.   
      
   Marvel Heroes was buggy at launch, and the developers had to fix   
   it. They relaunched it in 2014, and its average Metacritic   
   rating rose from 58 out of 100 to 81 after a number of key   
   adjustments to content and the pricing model. The company did a   
   further update and renamed Marvel Heroes as Marvel Heroes 2015.   
   The game was a moderate success in its new form, but Gazillion   
   laid off some staff in September 2015. Brevik resigned as CEO in   
   January 2016, and Dohrmann took over.   
      
   Dohrmann, who later changed his name to David Von Dorman,   
   attempted to reboot the company and launched the PlayStation 4   
   version of the Marvel Heroes — dubbed Marvel Heroes Omega —   
   earlier this year. Von Dorman said early results were good, but   
   apparently the players didn’t stick around.   
      
   In an email, Von Dorman said, “It’s obviously been a really   
   difficult period – a turn of events that is very hard to fathom.   
   You know we were very committed to building Gazillion and we   
   were on that trajectory – but yes, sadly due to a series of   
   events that happened at an incredible pace (the last 30 days)   
   the company is preparing to wind down. I can tell you that above   
   anything else, the management team tried as best we could to   
   make sure our employees would be treated with respect and given   
   severance packages. It is heart breaking that things ended up   
   this way, but as mentioned our intent has always been to take   
   care of our people. If we could have done this differently we   
   would have.”   
      
   I interviewed each of Gazillion’s leaders over the years, and it   
   was sad to see the company’s decline. Sorry to deliver a downer   
   on Thanksgiving, but this is one of those cases where I cover a   
   company from cradle to grave.   
      
   https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/23/marvel-heroes-publisher-   
   gazillion-shuts-down-after-disney-severs-ties/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)