The Marvel film universe is perhaps one of the most famous and most popular movie franchises to have ever existed, with the fact that Disney deciding to buy it in 2009 for a fee that was reported to be worth billions.
Indeed, the likes of Captain America, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor are some of the most famous action heroes to have ever been created, with “The Avengers” film series has proven to be some of the biggest hits that Hollywood have ever had.
Of course, when players visit an online casino, they would have been expecting to find several Marvel-themed online slot games to play, as it would have been incredibly easy for a developer to take the brand on and instantly attract several players straight away.
Problems occurred
Indeed, whilst PlayTech took advantage of the popularity that Marvel has, as they invested a lot of money and used a significant amount of the resources that they had available to them to produce several games, to begin with; perhaps because they included them with progressive jackpots that could mean players would be able to win huge sums of money.
These titles appeared to be a huge hit – just like the films – from the beginning, however, the acquisition of Marvel Studios by Disney played a huge role in why they can not be played today.
Although it was not until 2017 when a full ban came into effect, it is argued that the seed had already been planted and sewn sometime before that, with the huge entertainment company having been purchased in 2009.
Disney is known as a family brand and one that is arguably the most friendly, therefore it would then be considered rather irresponsible by many that they were actively allowing for their hit film series to be used for an activity that some would consider the opposite of family-friendly.
Disney has an anti-gambling stance
It did not help that Disney has also had a long anti-gambling stance and one that has not been hidden. In fact, the corporation made it public knowledge that they were opposed to the idea of casinos being opened up in the state of Florida – where they have one of their biggest resorts in Orlando.
Even though the Sunshine State was struggling in regards to its economy and lack of jobs, Disney was still against it as they believed that the opening of two casinos would go on to negatively impact the image that the state had, thus fearing that their amusement parks would also suffer.
One of the first things they did when they took over the Marvel brand was to confront the licensing issues that surrounded the online slot game market and revealed that they would not renew any of them once they had expired. This took a lot longer than they may have liked, however, we’re happy to wait as long as they needed to ensure they were able to get what they had set out for.
Marvel is not the only film franchise that has been withdrawn from the online slot game world, with Star Wars being phased out as soon as they could after acquiring the rights to the film franchise.