Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: disney, Gazillion Entertainment, marvel, Marvel Heroes Omega

Gazillion Entertainment Is Shutting Marvel Heroes Down This Friday Instead Of The End Of December As Promised

Based on reports coming from the official Discord server of Marvel Heroes and Marvel Heroes Omega, posts on Twitter, reports on MassivelyOP, and a massive roundup of information on reset era, it appears that Gazillion Entertainment are closing up shop earlier than expected and that includes an earlier loss of service date for all versions of Marvel Heroes.

Gazillion announced their closure last week after being dropped by Disney for underperforming despite the game's re-branding and launch on console as Marvel Heroes Omega this spring. Many players and employees knew the shut down was coming, as things had been dodgy at Gazillion for years. One former employee told Kotaku, "within a year of the game's launch, there were at least three rounds of layoffs."

Today's news indicates that the shutdown date for Marvel Heroes will be this Friday, after many employees have allegedly been sent home.

A post on the Discord, supposedly coming from a former developer, known as Winterthur on the official forums, announced the shutdown just a few hours ago.

MassivelyOP was tipped off to the closure earlier this evening by a confidential source. Their source's claims were publicly corroborated by former Gazillion gameplay engineer Andrew Hair  on Twitter. Hair then went on to argue that players should not ask for refunds, as the developers have not been given a severance package, will face medical coverage ending in 8 days, and are out any of their unused vacation days. Which, we can understand.

Players' responses to the shutdown were pretty well summed up by reset era user ZeroVGM:

• Gazillion has apparently fired their employees today, the day before Thanksgiving.
• Marvel Heroes was announced to be shutting down on December 31, 2017. Word from the official Discord server is that they will instead pull the plug in TWO days. There may not even be an official announcement, it could just be shut down.
• Players are trying to get refunds on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, due to how ridiculous it is that it's alerady [SIC] being shut down after launching less than 5 months ago. I've heard some people having better luck with Microsoft than Sony.

The news seems even more depressing when you look back at the deluge of #SaveMarvelHeroes messages that hit even just 12 hours ago.

While a refund from Sony appears to be unlikely, that may change depending on player responses. Microsoft is indeed giving refunds to players because of the end of service. Many players are suitably unhappy with Sony.

The Marvel Heroes Omega twitter has not responded to comments since their closure statement on November 15th.

We have reached out to Gazillion Entertainment for a comment on this story.

UPDATE:

Kotaku has confirmed with several former employees that Gazillion did indeed lay off all employees with no PTO, severance, or continuing medical coverage.

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