Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds is a sequel, so it has a pre-built audience from the first two games, but it has much more than that. With recognizable characters from several popular gaming and comics brands, it’s sure to draw in people who wouldn’t normally touch a fighting game. We talked to Capcom’s John Diamonon, Product Marketing Manager, and Ryan McDougall, Product Marketing Specialist, about the build up for the game.
[a]list: The first trailer for the game was at Captivate 2010. What was the reason for bringing it out then and does it show the importance of the event to Capcom?
John Diamonon: Captivate is a yearly event that we use to announce new titles and we get all the press together in a nice vacation spot to focus on what we have for the next year. It was the perfect time to reveal Marvel vs. Capcom 3, give a taste for what the game was going to be about, with new characters and better graphics and it generally highlight the return of the franchise.
[a]list: Was it conscious to try and match the aesthetic of the game?
John Diamonon: The concept for the game is a comic book come to life, from the comic style shaders to the colorful backgrounds. If you were to take a graphic novel and animate it, the book would look like that in motion; so the trailers were designed to emulate the look of the game.
That said, we consciously used different art styles, because the Marvel and Capcom styles are very different. The Marvel movies are very different from the style of the comics which is different than any number of different Capcom games. We wanted to take advantage of various aesthetics, so we chose a specific art style for each target audience.
[a]list: Capcom had a presence with the game for both NYCC and SDCC was that an important touch point with the fans?
Ryan McDougall: Absolutely. San Diego Comic Con has become a full scale entertainment destination. [Capcom] has been popular in the past for all our offerings, and having Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was our biggest draw at that convention. That is really where we kicked off the engagement in person at events and via online live-streams. It reached a ridiculous numbers of people with live-streams of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 in action.
John Diamonon: As far as NYCC, it was our first time at the event, but the reception was so good we’ll be back. It was great to talk to East coast fans who maybe couldn’t make it to San Diego.
[a]list: The SDCC is outrageously popular. I want to say that the show has tickets that sell out within minutes of availability.
Ryan McDougall: That’s where some of the online side of it comes, with multiple things going on simultaneously and the ability to interact with the fans online. We had five million unique users for the live-stream.
[a]list: It’s always nice when your game has a pre-built audience like that.
John Diamonon: We were involved in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 [for PS3 and Xbox 360] and that was basically an upgrade of a ten-year-old game, and that’s when we really started to see the interest in [the property]. When Marvel vs. Capcom 2 came out, we noticed that it had higher monthly online awareness than Madden or Wii Sports Resort, and we knew as long as we could maintain that momentum there was real potential for the series.
[a]list: So the re-release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was a large reason why the third game got made?
John Diamonon: That gave us the gauge of the interest, and it gave us a lot of information on how to move forward with it. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is one of the most beloved games ever and there was still a great community for it, with it still having a place in fighting game tournament circles. We didn’t know how much interest it still had with [a general audience], so it was a great gauge of how consumers would respond. It ended up being one of the most successful downloadable console titles ever. I think it’s the top PSN title ever and in the top five for Xbox Live Arcade.
[a]list: It’s always been one of the more approachable series out there. I can remember it back in college on the Dreamcast… while I was a huge fan of Street Fighter III, it wasn’t exactly friendly for people unfamiliar with fighting games. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was a much more popular choice.
Ryan McDougall: I think if you look a decade after that experience, it showed through with Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. We really look forward to approaching a broader audience; that’s [part of] what we mentioned with the broad art style. We are trying to tap the Marvel movie fans, the Capcom game fans and the Marvel vs. Capcom fans. So [casting a big net] was important, going for more than hardcore fighting game people.
[a]list: It’s funny how a decade can change things. I mean, Iron Man was in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but I’m sure the demand was much more to have him in Marvel vs. Capcom….
Ryan McDougall: Our latest research was very enlightening. Before, you look at the art for Marvel vs. Capcom 1 and 2 and Spider-Man is in the forefront, but our research said that Iron Man was the most popular Marvel character right now, so he’s in the front. He is now more popular than Wolverine.
Another difference, you look at Deadpool… he wasn’t big in comics until the late ’90s and his popularity has exploded and he brings something very different to the game. We’re taking him and putting him next to Iron Man and Wolverine in a lot of promotions.
[a]list: Deadpool also presents an opportunity to break the fourth wall…
John Diamonon: Fans have created this whole lingo around the game, like ‘Where’s your curleh moustache’ [That’s actually how it’s spelled. -Ed.] he’ll say that if he beats Magneto. So this game is fun for everyone, it is not just for fighting game fans. Even the alternate costumes were chosen by people from Marvel to show different embodiments of the character.
[a]list: There’s also a levity around the characters, like when Taskmaster says I am the ass-kicker, you are the ass-kickee!
Ryan McDougall: Characters like Taskmaster and Deadpool are great in playing up the cheese factor and cracking jokes. Thor, by contrast, is absolutely serious. Wesker is in character as well, and that’s what makes it so true to the fans.
John Diamonon: It’s made for the fans and what’s cool is the interaction between the characters. Like, you have Phoenix talk to Wolverine before the match and say, I wish this wasn’t you, Logan. It has all these fan-service touches and one of the things our fans appreciate is our authenticity. We had a Marvel writer on board to make it that much better, incorporate funny things like Spider-Man calling Ryu karate kid.
[a]list: Was it the plan from the beginning to have a slow drip of information over who the fighters would be in MvC 3?
John Diamonon: Yes, that was very deliberate. We checked what people wanted to see, and the number one thing was who was going to appear. So every month, we decided to release a couple characters especially during key events with a reveal trailer and gameplay assets. The reason we were able to build up excitement over the past year was that people kept coming back to see who was next, and that helped maintain awareness. People would always criticize over who was in or out, and the debate was good to have.
[a]list: It’s impossible to please everyone, given the literal thousands of potential characters to choose from for both Marvel and Capcom… but it’s better to have people care and complain than not care and say nothing.
Ryan McDougall: We’ve probably upset a number of fans by including a character and not another, but we’d rather have that problem. We listen to our fans, and they know that we will hear them; they say things too loudly for us not to!
[a]list: I know for a fact that a number of fans reacted to the announcement that Phoenix was in the game with disappointment when they found out it was Jean Grey and not Phoenix Wright.
John Diamonon: There’s definitely a strong Phoenix Wright contingent. It’d be interesting to see how you implement a lawyer in the Marvel vs. Capcom fighting series, but we love how passionate the fans are. That’s the challenge, our producer came out and said, Phoenix is not a fighter in his own game so its hard to make him one here. We give marketing people access to Capcom Unity, so we know they’re vocal.
Ryan McDougall: Phoenix Wright is in the game though – the cat is out the bag! He has a short cameo in She Hulk’s ending. I love the synergy the game allows to bring in two lawyers in context in the game.
[a]list: I know the roster was in a state of mild flux during development. How much heads up time was their given before a character would be announced to cut a new trailer?
John Diamonon: You’re right in the sense that the roster was changing to a certain point. We had to find out what characters were ready first and what characters we could announce and show these characters in a somewhat logical way, whether they were totally the same or wildly different.
[a]list: Talk to me about the TV campaign for MvC3 and the importance of that in reaching fans who like these characters but might not follow games as much.
John Diamonon: The idea for the whole TV campaign was to feature our most iconic characters and show them in combat using scenes from the episodic trailers, with music from David Banner, who is a Grammy winning producer that did a campaign for Gatorade. We did this in order to appeal to a wider audience and focus on the Marvel characters they know and love.
[a]list: How were the characters chosen for use in the ads?
Ryan McDougall: With the characters in the TV campaign, that was a marketing decision. The real algorithm comes from who are the most popular characters, and then feature them, like Spider-Man and Iron Man from Marvel and Dante and Ryu from Capcom.
[a]list: For the game itself, how were the characters decided Was it popularity or based upon what the producer wanted?
Ryan McDougall: The roster was a really interesting collaboration with Marvel. We had a list of characters and we sent it to them, and they made some changes and sent it back – we went back and forth for a while. Both sides wanted a roster that would please both franchise fans and fans of the universes. We wanted characters that would do the most for fans.
John Diamonon: It was a mix of new and old characters, with familiar faces like Ryu mixed in with characters like Amateratsu and Viewtiful Joe that didn’t even exist when Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was released. Plus there’s other considerations, like you don’t want to have too many people with guns in their fighting styles.
[a]list: It’s easy for fans to look at individual characters and wonder why they are included, but for a game like this you really need to consider the ensemble cast.
Ryan McDougall: That’s especially true in the fighting style. It’s all about crafting a team, so you really need a balance. It’s important if you have a character like Hulk to consider adding an assist from MODOK or something like that. It’s not just about how they play alone but as a team.
[a]list: Talk to me about other forms of advertising, like the official website and Facebook, and how influential that was in the campaign.
John Diamonon: Speaking of, when Marvel vs. Capcom 2 release, there really wasn’t much as far as web promotions. But to get back to today, you’ve seen a shift in the way websites are used [in marketing] even in the past few months. It was the first goal to use Facebook as a sounding board for the game. We made a concerted effort to build our community where they spend most of their time, in this case on Facebook and Twitter, so we shifted our strategy to making the main website as a re-director with some media included.
Did you watch the Super Bowl commercials Where are they advertising It’s not the main URL, it’s the Facebook URL. Using your main site for searches, Facebook for community and Twitter for your news feed. It’s all about combining these new avenues.
[a]list: I’m sure the anticipation was palpable.
John Diamonon: Yeah, we’ve heard about all sorts of people doing their own sort of midnight launch events with the game.
[a]list: Anything you’d like to add?
Ryan McDougall: Going back to the goal of the campaign, we focused on building a hardcore audience first and reaching the wider audience later; that’s how we evolved the campaign from announcement to release. One of the ways we did that was a Promotional Artist series, but it’s one of the things that stuck with us. We contacted artists from Marvel comics and we contacted the Capcom concept artists in Japan and the U.S. in what was pitched as a friendly competition. What we ended up with was 10 or 12 pieces of work done with different characters, with people who were unfamiliar with Marvel working with those heroes or vice-versa. We had interesting interactions with the artists who wanted to find out what makes Morrigan into Morrigan and so on.
John Diamonon: Or how to make her family friendly!
[a]list: Yeah, she has an… aggressively swooping dress line that could single-handedly challenge a ‘T’ ratting’
Ryan McDougall: It’s still a ‘T’ rated game so we had to be tasteful. There are specific guidelines for how much can be shown. In order to get around it, there’s normally a character in front of her in a lot of the promotional art.
[a]list: It seems like Darkstalkers characters find their way into a lot of Capcom games. I’m sure the cult of Darkstalkers fans appreciates that.
Ryan McDougall: I know a couple of those cult fans are working in the product development department [at Capcom]! It’s an important part of our history and we wanted to feature Darkstalkers characters in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 even if there is no Darkstalkers 4.
[a]list: For now, you mean! Guys, thanks for taking the time to discuss this.
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