‘Marvel Rivals' Director Dismisses ‘Gooner Game' Classification

Forbes

a day ago

The longer Marvel Rivals exists, the more cosmetic skins are added to the game, and the ones that attract the most attention on social media are the provocative ones, namely for the female characters that show quite a bit of skin.
During a lengthy Rivals Assembled interview with Marvel Rivals creative director Guangguang, this specific question of Rivals becoming a 'Gooner' game was raised (don't ask me the origin of the word, let's just say people now use it to describe games relying heavily on sex appeal). Guangguang had a thoughtful answer that didn't go after those saying that, but explained why such costumes are chosen. Namely, most of the ones cited are straight from the comic books. Here's the exchange:
Rivals Assembled: 'Speaking of cosmetics and skins…how do you guys respond to people calling Marvel Rivals a 'gooner game'?
Guanguang: 'Because our design is inspired by classic comic themes, including some very outstanding skins, like Mantis and also Psylocke's Vengeance, these all come from classic comic designs, and we create some more fashionable designs based on them to gain players' appreciation. I think this also reflects the broad recognition from our players."
"As mentioned earlier with the Squirrel Girl and the Krakoa Resort skin, these are actually designs based on real-world themes and the season's storyline. For designs like these, we try our best to integrate the storylines from the season, including elements from Krakoa and blend popular elements from real life. We create new designs based on that and I'm very grateful these designs have been well received by the majority of players.'
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There's an entire debate in the gaming community about whether 'sexy' character designs help or hurt a game. The fact is…the main issue is whether the game is fundamentally good or not. There are examples both ways. Famously 'woke' Concord with its conservative, extremely poor character designs utterly failed. The hot heroine Eve was the star of the successful Stellar Blade. But The First Descendant which has leaned heavily into these character designs, is still trucking along but is at anywhere from 90-95% down from its peak.
The general sense is that Marvel Rivals is a fundamentally good game, and it would be good with or without these skins, albeit it's almost certain they sell better than most. Rivals is still topping 120,000 players a night on Steam alone, and its monthly character churn is keeping people occupied who may otherwise dip out.
The entire 'gooner versus woke' debate remains rather pointless, as the main point is that a game has to be quality enough to retain players, and going one way or the other isn't going to flip the success switch. I do not expect Marvel Rivals to change anything from here, nor should they, really.
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