DC Reportedly Developing Their Own Marvel Rivals-style “Gooner Game” — Is Go Woke, Go Broke Dead?

Marvel Rivals has been a hit this year, beloved by critics and fans, and hugely profitable, generating over $130 million in its first month alone (based on estimates by GameLook).

Given this is a free to play game, we can safely assume a lot of the game’s success has been a direct result of the studio's approach to skins.

Hot Skins: The New Moneymaker in Gaming

If you’ve played Rivals, you’ll be well aware of their “approach to skins”. Every character is hot and most of the skins are revealing. 

As you would expect, the devs have been criticized for this strategy. A lot of the backlash can be chalked up to pearl-clutching, but there are also more nuanced complaints that are harder to argue with.

As Tess Kaur over at TheGamer points out, “Marvel Rivals does largely heavily sexualize its female characters, while male characters don’t get the same treatment.” Which is true; the men are all fantastically muscular, and some are even topless, but there’s definitely a smaller proportion of skimpy outfits for the guys.

Maybe one day the devs will put as much effort into pecs and biceps as they do into jiggle physics? Regardless, what they’re doing now is working, and other studios are taking note (the recently-leaked skin for Loba will go further in that direction than Apex has ever been before, and by some margin).

Marvel’s main competitor, DC, seemingly plan to replicate this success with a game like Rivals for their own universe. 

Job Listing Suggest DC Are Developing Their Own Marvel Rivals

Back in February of this year, James Gunn told ComicBook that a DC version of Marvel Rivals was “totally possible”, adding, “I’d be open to it.” And now, in late July, a job listing from WB Games has seemingly confirmed development.

The listing is for an exec producer to manage a new game based on the DC Comics catalog, and the role description makes it clear that this will also be a live-service title, “from concept to post-launch” the candidate will need to oversee “live service strategy”.

DC has been playing catch up for decades now, and their attempts to replicate Marvel’s success have largely all failed. Which makes it easy to be cynical about the whole project, but this could mark an interesting turning point in video game development.

We’re yet to see anything from the DC version of Rivals, but if they really do want to compete with Marvel, it’s hard to imagine they won’t follow suit in the skins department. And if they do, it would certainly help their monetization efforts, but would it be problematic?

After all the changes we’ve experienced culturally in the last twenty years, do cosmetics like this represent a step back, or are developers simply giving the people what they want? 

If you want to save up for DC's game, or get yourself a nice skin for Rivals, try paid game testing and earn a few bucks in your spare time.