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[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

Not sure what one thing has to do with the other. Does the OP think that Sony has the movie rights to Wolverine and that's why they can produce a game (they don't). Does the OP think that Sony owns the game rights to Spider-Man (they don't).

And then the poll makes no sense whatsoever. The list is based on the 2011 leaked document that list the characters Sony owns the movie rights to. I have gone through the list and probably 99% of those characters cannot carry a movie or TV show. Sony is testing the limits by making a Morbius movie that will have no connection whatsoever to the Midnight Sons and Blade.

The contract also specifies the movies have to be PG-13 or equivalent so people bitching about Venom not being rated R understand that you'll never get that unless either Marvel gets the rights back or greenlight Sony to do it.

Marvel Games has the video game rights to every Marvel character.

Movie rights =/= game rights.

It gets tiring having to repeat this time and again....

Must not be many good ones I guess.

How dare you?

List includes top notch household names like Gantry, Daze, and Satellite. There are even named characters listed as "136. Dealer, The" and "141. Dentist, The"

This. I mean a deal has been made between sony and disney to use the rights for Wolverine on a game. maybe sony pays some royalty fee per game sold or maybe sony lends spider man character in one of the movies.

Not to make this overly confusing - and my guess is there's more at play between Sony and Disney, which I won't go into - but the licensor of a worldwide known HUGE IP like Marvel generally licenses out the product to the licensee for a minimum guarantee + a royalty (the two are not cumulative). Royalties in games can be 5-30% of the revenue and it can be a sliding scale or differ depending if it's sold directly to the customer or through a 3rd party, for example. Reports must be provided monthly or so so for example:

Licensor grants licensee the rights to produce a game based on a license. Minimum guarantee is 80MM. This means the licensee must pay the licensor that amount no matter what (usually in installments, i.e. 40MM upon signing the agreement, 20MM on X date, 20MM on Y date). Can be more installments and can vary (i.e. 2nd payment upon milestone X, 3rd payment upon milestone Y, etc), you get the point. Royalty rate for this example is 20% of the revenue.

Scenario A: Licensee botches and provides a shitty product that bombs and sells horribly. Let's say total revenue is 50MM for the product. The licensee still has to pay the licensor the 80MM minimum guarantee. This is what happened to the Avengers game. SE lost a shitload of money. Marvel still got paid.

Scenario A: Licensee provides a well received product and it sells great. Let's say total revenue is 700MM for the product. Licensee has already paid the 80MM minimum guarantee and has paid the licensor the royalty rate in a monthly or quarterly schedule. Licensor has made 140MM on this license agreement. This is what happened with Spider-Man and Miles Morales games.

The movie license had no bearings in the initial game license deal. It has been confirmed by JSteveson.

100% true.

But I assume that when Sony pitches a game to Marvel they pitch one with the characters that appear on their movies in order to crosspromote them. So if Sony has the Spider-Man, Venom, Morbius and Kraven movies, guess who will appear in the Spider-Man 2 game. I bet after Spider-Man 2 they will make a 'short' spin-off with Venom. And that after a game or two of Wolverine (where for sure we'll see there cameos from many characters from the Sony's mutants movies), they will jump to X-Men.

Insomniac seems to have 3 or 4 teams. We know two of them are with mostly the Marvel games, a third with Ratchet (I assume this will stick to Insomniac existing and new IPs) and the other one with VR stuff (who I think may combine Marvel and Insomniac IPs). If they don't have already these 4 teams, I think it's a matter of time that they will have them since the Sony internal studios are growing.


I'm pretty sure the all mighty Knack would kick Thano's ass.

No, that's not how that works. The Marvel Games - SIE deal was signed in 2016 IIRC. SPE began filming Venom 1 in 2017. If what you are alluding to was true Venom would have been seen in the game, or in Miles Morales. Neither happened. Insomniac has their own pitch to Marvel Games (licensor) and SIE (publisher) for approval. Licensor must also approve content and story (since they own that), so it's up to Marvel to approve it. Remember that Marvel has ALL merch rights (which includes games) to all of their characters.

Not sure what you mean by the bolded either. Sony has no film rights to mutants, X-Men, or Wolverine in movies. They never have. That all belonged to Fox. Those rights have been transferred to Marvel after the Fox buyout.

 

[anthony2690]

I'm more surprised to find out there is that many marvel characters, I think I could only name around 10 of them.

That being said I am not really a fan of super heroes, but I wouldn't mind seeing a game based on the mask (loved the Jim Carrey film & I think it could be entertaining)

Is the mask considered a super hero or whatever?

 

[Yoboman]

Imagine if Playstation just became a subsidiary of Disney and made Marvel and Star Wars only games.

Han Solo: Uncharted, MS Marvel Last of Us, Spider Man, Wolverine.

It could be so good.

Disney would kill off all mature games

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

900 characters, yet we typically see the same handful of characters over and over again during the years?

 

[ManaByte]

900 characters, yet we typically see the same handful of characters over and over again during the years?

Because out of those 900 characters, Spider-Man, Miles, and Venom are the only viable ones for a franchise. It's 900 characters, but it's pretty much EVERYONE who ever appeared in a Spider-Man related comic, including Peter Parker's dentist.

 

[Papacheeks]

I think Marvel sees now that Insomniac Games will give their IPs the best quality superhero games

I want Insomniac Games to make a new Resistance after Wolverine and then Xmen, Black Panther, or Dr. Strange

Make X-men gameplay wise like Mass effect. Cycling between abilities or characters while AI will take commands from you. Imagine pick and choosing which xmen goes on missions? Fuck me. Drooling right now, give me gambit, wolverine, rogue, storm

 

[DGrayson]

Sony's got Meteor Man.

Game over Disney.

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

As long as they are good games, both. Marvel is just a skin for me, a one i like but i don't care about the movies.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

And that after a game or two of Wolverine (where for sure we'll see there cameos from many characters from the Sony's mutants movies), they will jump to X-Men.

Wait...all this time you thought Sony had the rights to Marvel's mutants?

 

[SoullessApples]

I got 900 Marvel characters and Superman ain't one. Hit me.

Who's going to tell him?

 

[hemo memo]

Returnal?

Good contents. Returnal isn't.

 

[SLB1904]

Good contents. Returnal isn't.

Says you clown

 

[yurinka]

Wait...all this time you thought Sony had the rights to Marvel's mutants?

Unlike the MCU most of them did suck, so I assume they're from Sony instead of from Marvel Studios. Aren't them from Sony? I may be wrong, I'm not a cinema guy.

edit: just saw Fox (so now Disney) is who made the mutants movie, not Sony. I was wrong.

No, that's not how that works. The Marvel Games - SIE deal was signed in 2016 IIRC. SPE began filming Venom 1 in 2017. If what you are alluding to was true Venom would have been seen in the game, or in Miles Morales. Neither happened. Insomniac has their own pitch to Marvel Games (licensor) and SIE (publisher) for approval. Licensor must also approve content and story (since they own that), so it's up to Marvel to approve it. Remember that Marvel has ALL merch rights (which includes games) to all of their characters.

Not sure what you mean by the bolded either. Sony has no film rights to mutants, X-Men, or Wolverine in movies. They never have. That all belonged to Fox. Those rights have been transferred to Marvel after the Fox buyout.

Yep I was wrong, the mutants movies were from Fox and not from Sony. Venom has been teased since the first Spider-Man game and will appear in the 2nd one. Sony, as the publisher of the game and the owner of Insomniac obviously have a say about what projects do they greenlight to Insomniac.

Insomniac doesn't decide themselves what games and characters do they use and don't pitch them directly to Marvel. Before that it needs to be greenlighted and approved by Sony, because first it's important to don't mess it up with a big licensor and second because these licenses are very expensive and specific because they don't simply get the rights to make a Spider-Man game and the devs are free to include whatever they want and whoever they want there. Their license is limited to certain characters and must follow some brand guidelines and specifications that later get verified and greenlighted by the licensor. And if they want to use additional characters or stuff (as it would be important enemies like Venom) they need to license that separatedly.

As an example, I did work on a game where we had some Star Trek The Next Generation licensed DLC/IAP items and a related tiny storyline time limited event. We weren't allowed to use any Star Trek character, not even the TNG ones. We weren't allowed to use ships from Star Trek other than the specific Enterprise of TNG (we couldn't use other ones). In addition to this we only got the license to use the Star Trek TNG logo, the Star Trek symbol, the Star Trek TNG Enterprise staff costumes (that the characters of our game would wear) and also got the license to use the Star Trek TNG cockpit items as decoration items for our game. We couldn't even name Star Trek TNG characters or alien races. What the Enterprise was able to do on ur game or the Star Trek stuff included in our lore had to (something I liked and agreed) match perfectly the Star Trek TNG lore. If we wanted some extra stuff other than the one we got, it would be negotiated in a separate deal with another payments, a long paperwork and another huge chunk of related and very detailed brand guidelines documents with reference material explaining what could we show, how it should appear, the lore things we had to respect, how it should look etc.

So in our studio were very careful of every Star Trek related detail we included or asked for, things that later had long approval/greenlighting meetings first with our HQ office/publisher/owner and after that with the licensor who always sent us a ton of very detailed feedback and sometimes some weird requirements. Even the related social media stuff was overviewed and greenlighted.

Another example: way before that our studio did work on a mobile game of the first Lord of the Rings movie back then, in the age of the Java phones, with shitty screens. There was a stage where Aragorn fought in a cave some bats and a giant spider. The licensor insisted that the rocks, the bats, the spider and Aragorn''s hair and costume all had to be black. Not even dark brown/blue/grey/etc. They didn't understood -we discussed this topic in a long meeting- that it was going to be an unplayable mess because it's important to differientiate the main character, enemies and platforms and separate them from the background specially when making pixel art games on a shitty, low contrasted screen. We ended implementing what they asked for, so weeks/a few months later once they got the results they did realize that it looked bad and was unplayable. So we also shown them a mockup using more blues, browns, lighter greys and so on instead of having everythig black as we originally wanted to do to make everything more visible, colorful and playable while respecting the original concept instead of having everything black and we agreed to go to a middle point and we got the greenlight to change all the art of that stage.

Generally to work with licensed non-gaming IPs is a pain in the ass, more than to when pitching stuff to the HQ of your company or to a game publisher, because quite often the game on the licensor side doesn't have a certain level of knowledge about gamedev. We also worked in many licensed IPs from UEFA, EA, THQ, Codemasters, Sony Pictures or Ubisoft to name a few.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Don't care about all this marvel characters. Give me original contents.

There are plenty of other devs in the industry doing precisely this.

It's extremely narcissistic, entitled and self-indulgent to think that every developer MUST make a game that aligns with your own specific personal interests.

Maybe grow up a little.

 

[hemo memo]

Says you clown

It's called an opinion.

 

[skneogaf]

I can see Disney buying the full company that is Sony in the future.

 

[SLB1904]

It's called an opinion.

Opinion is like ass. Everyone has one

 

[Fox Mulder]

The wolverine origins game was legit fun and I'm more interested in a new AAA wolverine game.

 

[Connificent]

890 characters nobody gives a shit about.

 

[SLB1904]

I got 900 Marvel characters and Superman ain't one. Hit me.

*beat starts*

 

[TimFL]

This. I mean a deal has been made between sony and disney to use the rights for Wolverine on a game. maybe sony pays some royalty fee per game sold or maybe sony lends spider man character in one of the movies.

I think this is what happened. Sony announced they were pulling out of the MCU (with leaks citing greedy Disney wanting more $$$ due to the success of the new Spidey flicks), but fanbase outcry (+ Tom Holland drunkenly calling Iger) reignited deal discussions and they probably settled on Sony being the goto game publisher for Marvel IPs.

The Insomniac creative lead from back then said as much: Sony consulted them "hey we want to make a Marvel game with you, which IP are you interested in?" and they picked Spider-Man. After the massive Spider-Man (and probably Miles too) game success, they probably got offered to do another IP and they picked Wolverine.

Makes sense to me that Disney would go for exclusive game development / publishing deals in exchange for keeping their poster boy in the MCU.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

Unlike the MCU most of them did suck, so I assume they're from Sony instead of from Marvel Studios. Aren't them from Sony? I may be wrong, I'm not a cinema guy.

edit: just saw Fox (so now Disney) is who made the mutants movie, not Sony. I was wrong.


Yep I was wrong, the mutants movies were from Fox and not from Sony. Venom has been teased since the first Spider-Man game and will appear in the 2nd one. Sony, as the publisher of the game and the owner of Insomniac obviously have a say about what projects do they greenlight to Insomniac.

Insomniac doesn't decide themselves what games and characters do they use and don't pitch them directly to Marvel. Before that it needs to be greenlighted and approved by Sony, because first it's important to don't mess it up with a big licensor and second because these licenses are very expensive and specific because they don't simply get the rights to make a Spider-Man game and the devs are free to include whatever they want and whoever they want there. Their license is limited to certain characters and must follow some brand guidelines and specifications that later get verified and greenlighted by the licensor. And if they want to use additional characters or stuff (as it would be important enemies like Venom) they need to license that separatedly.

As an example, I did work on a game where we had some Star Trek The Next Generation licensed DLC/IAP items and a related tiny storyline time limited event. We weren't allowed to use any Star Trek character, not even the TNG ones. We weren't allowed to use ships from Star Trek other than the specific Enterprise of TNG (we couldn't use other ones). In addition to this we only got the license to use the Star Trek TNG logo, the Star Trek symbol, the Star Trek TNG Enterprise staff costumes (that the characters of our game would wear) and also got the license to use the Star Trek TNG cockpit items as decoration items for our game. We couldn't even name Star Trek TNG characters or alien races. What the Enterprise was able to do on ur game or the Star Trek stuff included in our lore had to (something I liked and agreed) match perfectly the Star Trek TNG lore. If we wanted some extra stuff other than the one we got, it would be negotiated in a separate deal with another payments, a long paperwork and another huge chunk of related and very detailed brand guidelines documents with reference material explaining what could we show, how it should appear, the lore things we had to respect, how it should look etc.

So in our studio were very careful of every Star Trek related detail we included or asked for, things that later had long approval/greenlighting meetings first with our HQ office/publisher/owner and after that with the licensor who always sent us a ton of very detailed feedback and sometimes some weird requirements. Even the related social media stuff was overviewed and greenlighted.

Another example: way before that our studio did work on a mobile game of the first Lord of the Rings movie back then, in the age of the Java phones, with shitty screens. There was a stage where Aragorn fought in a cave some bats and a giant spider. The licensor insisted that the rocks, the bats, the spider and Aragorn''s hair and costume all had to be black. Not even dark brown/blue/grey/etc. They didn't understood -we discussed this topic in a long meeting- that it was going to be an unplayable mess because it's important to differientiate the main character, enemies and platforms and separate them from the background specially when making pixel art games on a shitty, low contrasted screen. We ended implementing what they asked for, so weeks/a few months later once they got the results they did realize that it looked bad and was unplayable. So we also shown them a mockup using more blues, browns, lighter greys and so on instead of having everythig black as we originally wanted to do to make everything more visible, colorful and playable while respecting the original concept instead of having everything black and we agreed to go to a middle point and we got the greenlight to change all the art of that stage.

Generally to work with licensed non-gaming IPs is a pain in the ass, more than to when pitching stuff to the HQ of your company or to a game publisher, because quite often the game on the licensor side doesn't have a certain level of knowledge about gamedev. We also worked in many licensed IPs from UEFA, EA, THQ, Codemasters, Sony Pictures or Ubisoft to name a few.

Completely forgot about the post credit in SM 2018, so you are right about the tease. But then again that game also teased Dr. Strange, Avengers, and so on. It had nothing to do with movie rights. Game rights to Spider-Man is 100% owned by Marvel (well not now since they are leased out to Sony, like Wolverine, but you get the point).

I think we are kind of saying the same thing. IGs pitches an idea. This includes gameplay mechanics, story, and so on. Approvers to get the game greenlit are:
1) The licensor (Marvel). They own the license and will own the art, story, design, etc of the product. Any original characters produced will be owned by them. If the pitch/story is not true to their brand they won't approve it.
2) The publisher (Sony) - They will own the code, binary, libraries and other technical pieces of the product. They are taking all the financial risk by paying the developer, marketing, etc and must agree to approve the project.

If one of the approvers says no then the pitch must be adjusted accordingly until both approve. The approval process once the contract is signed is also interesting like you alluded to and varies from contract to contract. That's why it's imperative to have that process detailed on the contract (i.e. licensor must approve game build within X days of submission). What you detailed on working with licensed content is something I heard. It's the con of working with a big known IP that will most likely sell and be very lucrative. That's why Marvel changed in 2016 or so (when most of their game licensed IPs returned to them). They mentioned they wanted to find good partners and have good relationships at the time. Lucas has been notorious for being the hardest licensor to work with, though they may be following Marvel's lead after the mess that was that 10 year partnership with EA.

 

[EverydayBeast]

The opportunity is there sure but the problem is there isn't another 900 Insomanics.

 

[LimanimaPT]

Marvel movies are like cancer in movies and now it is spreading to videogames...Wait a few more years and AAA games from Sony will be nothing but this crap. I hope both Spiderman 2 and Wolverine bomb hard...

 

[Yselacrey00]

Sony Has Movie Rights to 900 Marvel Characters

Sony's staple of cinematic Marvel character rights goes far beyond Venom and Spider-Man.

screenrant.com

I seriously don't get this type of deals without expirations. They essentially sold the rights to Sony, it's theirs and from nobody else.

 

[Yselacrey00]

Marvel movies are like cancer in movies and now it is spreading to videogames...Wait a few more years and AAA games from Sony will be nothing but this crap. I hope both Spiderman 2 and Wolverine bomb hard...

Nah, those games aren't successful. That's why they put their AA developer on it and not a AAA developer

 

[yurinka]

Completely forgot about the post credit in SM 2018, so you are right about the tease. But then again that game also teased Dr. Strange, Avengers, and so on. It had nothing to do with movie rights. Game rights to Spider-Man is 100% owned by Marvel (well not now since they are leased out to Sony, like Wolverine, but you get the point).

I think we are kind of saying the same thing. IGs pitches an idea. This includes gameplay mechanics, story, and so on. Approvers to get the game greenlit are:
1) The licensor (Marvel). They own the license and will own the art, story, design, etc of the product. Any original characters produced will be owned by them. If the pitch/story is not true to their brand they won't approve it.
2) The publisher (Sony) - They will own the code, binary, libraries and other technical pieces of the product. They are taking all the financial risk by paying the developer, marketing, etc and must agree to approve the project.

If one of the approvers says no then the pitch must be adjusted accordingly until both approve. The approval process once the contract is signed is also interesting like you alluded to and varies from contract to contract. That's why it's imperative to have that process detailed on the contract (i.e. licensor must approve game build within X days of submission). What you detailed on working with licensed content is something I heard. It's the con of working with a big known IP that will most likely sell and be very lucrative. That's why Marvel changed in 2016 or so (when most of their game licensed IPs returned to them). They mentioned they wanted to find good partners and have good relationships at the time. Lucas has been notorious for being the hardest licensor to work with, though they may be following Marvel's lead after the mess that was that 10 year partnership with EA.

Yes, Marvel has the brands and the rights of all the Marvel stuff for the games and most other stuff.

Sony only has the Spider-Man & co. for the movies because they made that deal for movies only, and rights for movies are totally unrelated to the ones for games.

For the games, publishers like Sony, Capcom, Square and so make a game specific pitch to the licensor (Marvel) to get licensed to use certain(s) Marvel IP(s) in exchange to pay them a certain amount of money upfront and/or a revenue share of the revenue generated by the game.

The only thing is that since Sony has the movies, I assume they prefer to use in their games characters of the movies they have in order to crosspromote their own movies and games. Sometimes the pitch goes in the opposite direction: the licensor is who suggests the publisher/dev to make a certain game. In the case of the Wolverine game maybe Marvel got super happy with the top quality and sales of Insomniac's Spider-Man so thought they were the best candidates to handle Wolverine/X-Men games (maybe one of their most important IPs). Or maybe they got pitches from several companies to make the Wolverine/X-Men games and only accepted the Sony one.

Regarding who owns the additional characters created for the game, the game source code, in-game assets, story etc depends on each case. Traditionall both get the code in case they want to make future ports or sequels or to reuse it somewhere else. The licensor/IP owner normally gets the characters and story in case they want to reuse it somewhere else (a sequel made by another people, a comic or a movie inspired by the game, etc). Both also keep the art specially for marketing purposes on both sides.

Yes, the approval process, what can be used and how it should be used, who gets what once the game is done, how the deal is paid and all these things have very long meetings to negotiate and agree it, and to write it down very clearly in great detail in the contract. Mostly stuff that makes sense.

I can see Disney buying the full company that is Sony in the future.

The Japanese government forbids to sell huge strategic companies to foreigners. So this won't happen.

 

[LimanimaPT]

Nah, those games aren't successful. That's why they put their AA developer on it and not a AAA developer

Being successful doesn't mean they are any good. Insomniac should be creating new IP.

 

[SpokkX]

So uh.. these 900 marvel characters are.. who?

there are not even 900 superheroes, right?

are they talking about some shopkeeper that featured in a spider man comic etc?

 

[Star-Lord]

Just watch Sony milk those huge hairy cows for everything they're worth.

 

[TidusYuna]

Sony's got Meteor Man.

Game over Disney.

Sony got...

Game Over World.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

Marvel movies are like cancer in movies and now it is spreading to videogames...Wait a few more years and AAA games from Sony will be nothing but this crap. I hope both Spiderman 2 and Wolverine bomb hard...

Game nerds are already orgasming thinking of a Sony Marvel Game Universe by their first/second party studios.

Given the success of both SM games and the hype on SM 2 and Wolverine you should indeed expect Sony - Marvel deal to expand, very likely long term too. I wouldn't worry though. SIE's first and second party studios will still produce original IPs and sequels based on their own franchises. I think you'll only be disappointed if you expect SIE to only work on original IPs and nothing else. Not every franchise will sell 10MM+ copies if it's a well received game. Ratchet and Returnal are examples of good, original IPs that were well received but sell a fraction of what they would sell if it was a licensed huge property like Marvel, Star Wars.

I seriously don't get this type of deals without expirations. They essentially sold the rights to Sony, it's theirs and from nobody else.

The licensor of big IPs ALWAYS has the leverage. Everyone knows this. Well except 90s Marvel. Early 2000s Marvel realized they fucked up and started trying to sue everyone to get the rights back. They sued Sony in 2003 for breach of contract and tried to get the 99 contract thrown in the trash. They sued Universal multiple times in the early 2000s for breach of contract to try to get the theme park rights back. They tried to get tricky in creating an X-Men TV show until Fox sued them. They were able to get a lot back though, even before the Disney buyout.

90s Marvel is a fascinating case study and it's incredible those people had those jobs. Goes to show you that being a high level million dollar+ salary executive does not equal being smart.

Yes, Marvel has the brands and the rights of all the Marvel stuff for the games and most other stuff.

Sony only has the Spider-Man & co. for the movies because they made that deal for movies only, and rights for movies are totally unrelated to the ones for games.

For the games, publishers like Sony, Capcom, Square and so make a game specific pitch to the licensor (Marvel) to get licensed to use certain(s) Marvel IP(s) in exchange to pay them a certain amount of money upfront and/or a revenue share of the revenue generated by the game.

The only thing is that since Sony has the movies, I assume they prefer to use in their games characters of the movies they have in order to crosspromote their own movies and games. Sometimes the pitch goes in the opposite direction: the licensor is who suggests the publisher/dev to make a certain game. In the case of the Wolverine game maybe Marvel got super happy with the top quality and sales of Insomniac's Spider-Man so thought they were the best candidates to handle Wolverine/X-Men games (maybe one of their most important IPs). Or maybe they got pitches from several companies to make the Wolverine/X-Men games and only accepted the Sony one.

Regarding who owns the additional characters created for the game, the game source code, in-game assets, story etc depends on each case. Traditionall both get the code in case they want to make future ports or sequels or to reuse it somewhere else. The licensor/IP owner normally gets the characters and story in case they want to reuse it somewhere else (a sequel made by another people, a comic or a movie inspired by the game, etc). Both also keep the art specially for marketing purposes on both sides.

Yes, the approval process, what can be used and how it should be used, who gets what once the game is done, how the deal is paid and all these things have very long meetings to negotiate and agree it, and to write it down very clearly in great detail in the contract. Mostly stuff that makes sense.


The Japanese government forbids to sell huge strategic companies to foreigners. So this won't happen.

Yes I know how merchandise and gaming licensing work. For big IP owners the case is usually that the licensor requests a minimum guarantee from licensee and they must be paid on certain dates, so licensor can say the minimum guarantee is 50MM and 25MM is due at signing of the contract, 15MM is due at milestone X (or date X), and 10MM is due at milestone Y (or date Y). There's also a royalty rate on revenue (varies can be 5% to 30%) that is usually due monthly or quarterly. Licensors like Disney audit those reports like crazy too. For some other licenses (such as theme park for example) there's an annual licensing fee on top of merch royalty fees.

It's possible that IGs (the developers) pitches to SIE (the publishers) first. SIE approves it and then pitches it to Marvel Games for final approval and get the game greenlit. However, that doesn't seem to be what happened with Wolverine. The pitch for that was made by Insomniac Games to SIE and Marvel Games. It was shared on the recent PS Blog.

Fast-forward a couple years and we're suddenly standing in front of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Marvel formally pitching a PlayStation 5 game starring the adamantium-clawed Mutant! (Since you just saw the announce teaser, we can confirm that the pitch seemed to go pretty well.)

Or maybe it was just a nice story and it went as you said and I described above.

Game copyrights and who owns what can change case by case and it needs to be spelled out on the contract, but usually it's exactly as I described. Licensor owns the art, story, design, characters (including original characters for the game, for example Luna Snow, Sybil Tan, The Hunter), etc. Licensee will usually be the sole owner of the code, binary, etc. If licensor later wants to port the game to a different console it'll have to be recreated from scratch. Licensee can own some of the art and music as well like you mentioned especially for marketing purposes.

Regarding Sony trying to pitch characters to cross promote their movies I don't think that's the case at all. You'd think they'd have pitched a Blade (not Wolverine) game to cross promote Morbius. They have no movie rights to X-Men, Wolverine, or any of the mutants, but seem to be going that direction. I think there's more at play between Disney and Sony here, but I digress for now.

 

[Yselacrey00]

Being successful doesn't mean they are any good. Insomniac should be creating new IP.

It wasn't sarcasm. I said those games aren't successful.

 

[LimanimaPT]

It wasn't sarcasm. I said those games aren't successful.

Ho, sorrry. I actually thought it was!

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

900! How many scientific experiments go wrong in the marvel universe?

It's not just scientific experiments going wrong, or the world coming to an end each week, but there have already been a few characters that have essentially remade the earth or even the universe for a time.

 

[TheAssist]

I'm so tired of superhero things. I mean Ironman back in the day was cool. Batman had a run. Even Spiderman.

But now its getting ridiculous. Everything looks and feels the same. Its always the same kin of story with the exact kind of storytelling and pacing. Every one of these movies, shows and games feel homogenized.

There doesnt seem to be a lot of variety in blockbuster franchises these days. Even back in my day you would get a Lord of the Rings and a Harry Potter movie at christmas times, plus some other blockbuster franchise like a bond movie or something similar. At least all these franchises were vastly different from another and you didnt get as fatigued, even if you were hard out of luck if you didnt like fantasy at the time.

It also feels so america centric. Obviously this is were the creatives come from, who grew up with comic books. But I'm from europe and I dont know a single person who ever read a superhero comic book. If anything we saw the batman cartoon and thats about it. Asia is probably a very similar story. We just dont have the nostalgia for it, which is why most people here are now sick and tired of it. It was fun in the beginning but its getting way out of hand.

 

[NahaNago]

I'm more surprised to find out there is that many marvel characters, I think I could only name around 10 of them.

That being said I am not really a fan of super heroes, but I wouldn't mind seeing a game based on the mask (loved the Jim Carrey film & I think it could be entertaining)

Is the mask considered a super hero or whatever?

It probably includes tons of the low level villains. Spiderman has fought more than just the sinister 6 villains.

It is kinda shocking that Sony hasn't made more spiderman spinoff movies since their is probably like a dozen versions of spiderman. A proper build up of several spidermen movies for a spiderverse movie.

 

[Effigenius]

I can see Disney buying the full company that is Sony in the future.

The pandemic has hit Disney especially hard. Nobody going to their theme parks, nobody going to their movies. They won't be making a purchase like that any time soon.

 

[Rest]

Must not be many good ones I guess.

If they're making a Kraven the Hunter movie it's got to be dregs of dregs. Who the fuck wants a Kraven movie?

 

[ChoosableOne]

"Sony Has the movie rights to 900 Marvel characters"