Marvel’s Peter Phillips reveals the secret for making superheroes work in games

Warner Bros. has invested heavily in superhero console games like Batman: Arkham Knight. But Marvel Entertainment has taken a different approach. Rather than use internal development studios to create huge console titles, Disney’s Marvel has turned to licensing. It works with outside game developers to infuse the Marvel characters, storylines, and environments into mobile and online games.

Those games are generating serious amounts of money and downloads, but they’re a very different beast from the Batman games. Peter Phillips, Marvel Entertainment executive vice president and general manager for interactive and digital distribution, is in charge of the games strategy. His approach has different kinds of risks than others. Disney just decided to end its Infinity toys-to-life video games and eliminate 300 jobs associated with that console game business, mainly because the toy-game market has stopped growing and competition has become too plentiful.