My boycott senses are tingling.
This week Crystal Dynamics made the announcement that Spider Man will be exclusive to the PlayStation version of Marvel Avengers when he releases at some point in 2021. Naturally the internet collective of gamers responded in exactly the way you would expect; cool heads, controlled tempers, completely mature response. I’m just kidding. People are angry and frankly they have every right to be.
Making an entire character exclusive to a single console in a multi-platform game in 2020 is outdated, it’s ridiculous, it is anti-consumer, petty, whatever negative attribute you want to ascribe to it it’s probably that. I’m sure Sony had more say in this than Crystal Dynamics did and it is a sad example of how secretive the world of mass media is because nobody quite understands how the exclusivity came to be and where the ownership of Spider Man truly lies so that these strings could be pulled behind the scenes. The only information we know about Spider-Man’s ownership is from leaked documents from ten years ago, and that contract has been modified several times since then.
But there is another side that I don’t think as many people will be considering until the character actually launches: That by making New York’s web slinger exclusive to PlayStation, they’ve ensured that PC and Xbox players actually won’t be missing out on much. They won’t be missing out on virtually anything, as a matter of fact. And by that virtue PlayStation players won’t get much value in return.
Let me explain this. Spider Man is going to be a PlayStation exclusive. This means that any chance for Spider Man to have a major role in the overall Avengers story line is out the door because including him as a very important character would either mean drastically cutting content for the Xbox and PC version which Crystal Dynamics is not going to do or it would mean having two very different stories running side by side that would only widen as new stories are added, which we can bet they also aren’t going to do as it would heavily increase development costs over time and let’s not forget these additions are free.
So where does this leave Peter Parker? We can safely bet that Peter’s role in the main story will be minimal. He’ll be relegated to a side role that can be easily replaced with another Avenger and a replacement voice line assuming he is even mentioned by name. He might have an introductory mission but after that his role in the Avengers universe will be minimally impactful. Anything he does will be replaceable by other characters in the other versions and essentially he’ll be a vestigial piece of content at best.
In practice, Spider Man will be about as essential to the story line of Marvel’s Avengers as the Hulk fist pickaxe is to the overall story of Fortnite. Sony isn’t adding value to the PlayStation version by making Spider Man exclusive, they are simply destroying any chance of the character becoming a valuable addition to the game’s lineup.
Sorry Marvel fans, Spider Man’s relevance is the cost of Sony’s anti-consumer practices.
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