Posted in: Comics, san diego comic con | Tagged: entertainment, Marvel Gaming, Marvel House of Ideas

SDCC '15: The Marvel House Of Ideas Panel Goes Gaming And Multi-Media

The Marvel House of Ideas Panel at San Diego Comic Con focuses on Marvel's digital comics, but early in the panel, it was also announced that they'd be discussing some Marvel video games as well. The audience seemed enthused by that development. Present were Daniele Campbell, Mike Jones, and Bill Roseman.

The panelists spoke about the necessity of getting people to try out digital comics who haven't read in that format before, and therefore one of their missions is to present Marvel comics through as many platforms as possible to reach readers.

Marvel Unlimited Plus teased a special members only event on Sunday at 10:00 AM at the Hilton Bayfront and they said there'd be announcement relevant to members.

Moving into Marvel Games, the panelists explained that there's a "yin yang braintrust for Marvel Games" said Bill Roseman. He shared a background "secret story" about Rocket Raccoon given his long history working for Marvel. Once in winter, he was asked to take on "the cosmic books" and they launched NOVA. He asked to launch a new book bringing forward characters from the 70's. One night he had his Marvel Handbooks spread out all over the floor and was using sticky notes to mark the characters he was interested in. His wife came in and asked why he was making such a mess. He said "I'm putting together a rag tag band of heroes in space and this is going to be our star!". She said, "It's a racoon". He said, "It's Rocket Raccoon". His story was met with applause. He was at Marvel on the East Coast for 20 years, and then when the gaming was being developed, he saw a spot open for "creative director". They were looking for someone who wasn't necessarily a games expert, but someone who loved the characters and wanted to protect the brands at Marvel. Putting "the right characters in the right costumes with the right dialogue"  is his job, he said.

Rosemann brought up Ant-Man, and said with the film releasing soon, Marvel Gaming read the script a year ago, and visited Marvel Entertainment to gather reference from the film. They told their departments "you don't have to have Ant-Man content", but if you do, let's talk about it. If you can't make the game better, he told them, don't do it, but if you can, consider it. There is going to be a "big Ant-Man table" in Marvel Pinball, for instance.

Moving on to discussing Marvel Future Fight, which caused applause when mentioned, that game has shown "amazing integration", they said, including Ant-Man and Yellowjacket, with "supercool unique abilities" that tie into characters. You can shrink down in a "Pym particle storyline" and you're walking around in a massive world. You get to go inside the Vision's body, inspired by a comics story, and then find the little "insects" that run his body too. The game has been downloaded 17 million times, they said.

Marvel Puzzle Quest was up next, showing promo artwork where "Heroes don't get any bigger" in Ant-Man under a magnifying glass.

Marvel Heroes is very much like Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Rosemann said, and there will be classic Ant-Man material as well as the new Scott Lang material, available now.

Marvel Avengers Alliance is another option for Ant-Man content to "celebrate the Marvel Universe".

Marvel Contest of Champions has just added Yellowjacket and Ant-Man, and that was a "huge opportunity" for the game-makers because many of them hadn't yet worked with shrinking objects.

All of these Ant-Man elements in the games went live last Thursday.

The panel teased "something big coming to Disney Infinity with 3.0 showing Hulk holding Ant-Man, surrounding Spidey, Iron Man, Rocket Raccoon and more.

Other teases included that there will be a Civil War documentary film, the "first in a new film series" from Marvel "coming soon".

There was also a screening of a new Superheroes: "What the.." marvel figure based stop-motion animation. It featured old migo-style Spidey figures, an 8-bit world, an encounter with Jedi, and more.

One of the projects they've handled recently is working with ESPN to do "The Body Issue" of their magazine. Since ESPN is a "sister company" they did the Marvel version of that magazine. It shows off their heroes' key physical attributes, spotlighting their physiology. With ESPN, they've also done a series of "origins" videos for sports heroes where the athletes tell stories from their lives which have been animated in comic book style.

During Q&A:

**A child asked if they are going to announce "Thor Girl" (Jane Foster) for Disney Infinity 3.0. They answered whether it's Disney Infinity or other Marvel Games, there is a "pipeline" between the East and West Coast and they try to bring characters as quickly as possible between the comics and the games. They also added that they are going to bring Jane Foster further into games generally as a character. They also added that something relevant to this question will be announced in tomorrow's Marvel Unlimited Panel.

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