EA and Marvel terminate development deal

Electronic Arts and Marvel Entertainment have terminated an agreement to create titles based on the comic giant's intellectual property.

The deal was first announced in 2004 and allowed EA to create games featuring multiple Marvel characters despite rival publishers owning the rights to specific characters, such as Activision's Spider-Man deal.

EA was allowed to create new characters for inclusion in the games, which Marvel would then spin-off into other media, most notably comic books.

The first fruit of this deal was the poorly-received Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects game released in 2005. EA Chicago was also said to have been working on a Marvel fighting game, but the studio was closed down late last year.

"EA and Marvel have jointly agreed to discontinue development of the Marvel titles under the EA Games label," said the company, reports GameTap.

"This was a business decision based on EA's portfolio strategy."