Why Are We No Longer Getting Marvel Slots?

Show of hands – who here saw “Captain America: Civil War”? Considering the fact that the movie has already made close to a billion dollars less than a month after release, I’m guessing quite a few of you have! That airport scene was awesome, right! I’m actually fairly certain that it broke the Guinness World Record for most superheroes fighting each other at the same time! I bet it’d make a FANTASTIC bonus game when the inevitable “Civil War” slot by Playtech rolls around, right? Huh? What do you mean it’s never coming out? It has to!!! IT’S NOT FAIR!!!

For those of you who are confused about what I’m referring to, popular casino games provider Playtech (responsible for popular slots such as “Gladiator” or “Pink Panther”) has had a deal with Marvel for many years to make slot adaptations based on their properties. The deal has been in place pretty much since Marvel’s properties have been turned into theatrical movies (after all, one of Playtech’s first Marvel slots is “Blade”, followed by “Daredevil”, “Elektra” and “The Punisher”), and some slots aren’t even based on movies at all, like Spider-Man and Wolverine. But while those were successful, they, much like Marvel movies in general, didn’t really become a major thing until the Marvel Cinematic Universe started in 2008 with the release of “Iron Man”. That’s when all of a sudden everyone and their mother began playing the Marvel slots, which forced Playtech to step up their game!

Subsequently, every single one of the “Phase 1” Marvel movies (both “Iron Man” films, “Thor”, “Captain America”, “The Incredible Hulk” and “The Avengers”) got a slot adaptation, and they were all pretty good! The Spider-Man slot also came out around this time, and I swear, it and “The Avengers” are among the best slots I’ve ever played in my life! And while Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe started out divisively with the commercially successful but critically divisive “Iron Man 3”, Playtech were right on track with their own slot adaptation based on it! And after that… Nothing. No slots based on “Guardians of the Galaxy”, “Thor: The Dark World”, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” or even “Ant-Man”. Just silence.

I don’t really know what happened, considering the fact that Marvel and Playtech have had a partnership for about 15 years now. I know that the slots were successful (first of all, they’re all over the Web, and second, if they weren’t, why would Playtech make so many of them), so maybe Marvel wasn’t happy with its share of the pie and pulled the license? Who knows. All I know is that, with Playtech moving on to making slots based on DC’s movies, chances are we’re never going to see another Marvel slot again. And that’s a shame!