a few sets ago? the writing was on the wall in the spring of 2007 with the original loss of the OP. I think UDE was actually surprized the game kept going after that, and that Marvel and DC Legends were supose to be bookends to the game itself, NOT next chapters.

then we had our voting for what goes into MUN, and if you look closely what didnt win the vote, alot of that went into MEV. So after playing MEV for a while it looks alot like these were teams and kinda a set that were in the design folder but not yet mad, and since it was already put together why not get it out the door.

VS had its chance to reinvent itself last year, and it did do a good job of it, but it was a very delicate stage, and a small fumble of the ball could cause alot.

UDE HAD to make amazing sets, not even meh sets would be able to be gotten away with, all things had to be sold. this in itself is an issue because of the printing problems that occurred with MVL and DCL. last fall at this time i put together the last revival of Vs players for the area, i got us back up to 12-15 which is ####ing hard to do. and what happens we run out of god damned product.

yep thats right all out, no dc no marvel legends. and this happned around january. So somehow kids were suppose to stay interested from january to JULY with no new product to play around with.

during this long wait we had some interesting mega weekends(with varying results), and the loss of DC and no OP annoucements for the rest of the year.

so after months and months of trying to keep interest in my area and continually telling kids oh yeah the next sent, just you wait. It comes and goes so fast few have time to buy much of any. Yes we did eventually get more product in the end of september. SOOOOO except for a few of us we went from January to September without new product, and few drafts in the mean time.

Not to mention the FIRE SALE, ude seemd to be doing with its sets from MVL to MUN. get them while there hot.

with the lack of annoucements and information from UDE, NO ONE in my area is going to buy a set that is the last set in the game. All we wanted is to know hey there will be more, for 2009 they are this and this. As simple as that and we would have bought MEV. As it stands now we are not buying it, did not pre order.

so basicly for the past year ive been playing on MWS instead of in real life, our hobby league during the summer moved strickly to online, and by the time we were able to have money to buy up some product, well it wasnt there for us. Plus lets not even get started on the fact we have NOTHING To look forward too. so the player base has fallen down to about ME and 2 others who kinda sorta soemtimes play but havent really paid attention since pre MVL.

belive it or not yes for a card game there are certain things that are expected. OP is the foundation of that. Having a tournament schedual to follow and plan things around. The fun i and my friends got out of this game was the tournaments that we would have fun and take a weekend to go to. Product being availible to buy of the rack instead of having to preorder everything is another.

how can you not argue the game is dead with all that is going on with it, and if you use the same expamples of what happend with other now dead games, it has followed par for the course on its deathnote.

which we may or may not get.

oh and again ill state that the idea of "if you buy alot of our stock(boxes of cards), we might put out a new set but dont hold your breath" isnt a business plan i want to follow.

ive been telling you all this since earlyer this year, hell the idea of moving the game to stricly online on MWS and having a player comitee and such was again something i brought up back in july augest area. yet at the time i was called an idiot for saying such things. well everything fortold has come forth. SO yes we do need a player commitee, and a design team, and use this to vote in what offical fan made sets are. Also we need to look back at the game and figure out of there are any ban erratas that could be done to the current game.

It's sad, but true.

I mean, look at vssystem.com. How much can it cost to update it when a new set comes out? Forget new articles, weekly or monthly updates or whatever. Take down the stuff that is out of date! It makes it look like you all went home and forgot to turn off the lights. If I were a new player and I looked at that sight, I would assume that the game died a logntime ago. There's still a banner to vote on MUN!

Again, how much can that possible cost? There's no excuse for it.

My store refuses to order VS boxes because only me and another guy buy them.

Online's for me.

What if UDE just plans to let it all hang. They don't plan on discontinuing VS because they own the system. They own the VS license, so maybe VS might take a hiatus. Once they've restructured their goals, who knows, we might see a VS resurrection. If it's about the licensing issue, they must have a better negotiating team which can show how much they can pay Marvel/DC to remain profitable plus it is a good promotional tool for the comic companies. Charts and past lessons will tell them that.

I think Marvel knows that the game has brought readers to their comic book. I restarted collecting comics when i got into VS, heck i even collected series that turned out to be duds. DC's a dunderhead for not knowing the vehicle that can get them that FREE adspace. Heck they even get paid for having their characters get some marketing at the card stores. In this light, i stopped collecting DC comics because VS allowed me to relive the adventures in comics. As for the marketing of the game, it has to be restructured or given a working budget by UDE to remain afloat. Every 6 months is way too long, and few products before that has hurt the game's visibility. As they say, Out of Sight is Out of Mind.

We held a draft last saturday at our local hobby shop. It was MUN, our reorder just arrived and there were still around 20 players interested in the game that showed up to trade cards and open their boxes. We even collated our orders for MEV and hopefully those 2 cases will be enough. We've even scheduled our own release event on the 27th of Dec. On our level, it still depends on the community's interest.

Maybe to tide things over, they can come up with a VS Marvel Essential collectors set.That way, they don't have to redesign cards and just come up with a fanbase vote and a base set at the same time. But they probably have already had a budget meeting at this point in time for the next year's projects/business products. So we'll wait and see, everything's probably set in stone for them at this point.

Well, too much wishful thinking, but it's the ball is in their hands, or they got us (the loyal VS players) by the balls on this one. :disappoin

I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that UDE is taking a wait-and-see attitidue. If they had definite plans for 2009, I'd have to think it would be in their best interest to announce them while MEV is in stores. The most logical conclusions I can come to are that 1) The game is dead and they don't want to tell us or 2) The future is uncertain and there is no news to share.

Marvel and DC don't care how much UDE can pay them and remain profitable. They care about how much they can make and still maintain the value of their license. At a certain point, they are better off losing revenues by not licensing a card game than they are reducing their fees for Upper Deck.

I think you're overestimating the impact Vs. has on comic sales based on your own experiences. I heard where someone brought a Vs. card to Geoff Johns to sign. I think it was Stargirl who he created. He had no idea the game even existed. To Marvel, Vs. is just one more license to sell. If they can do better with another gaming company, they will.

I'm sure Vs. has brought in a few readers. I've picked up a few books I wouldn't have because of Vs. But these are just a drop in the bucket for these publishers. Who's to say they wouldn't get more new readers licensing a new game with a better chance of success?

Dude, you're making a lot of assumptions. For all we know, UDE was making unreasonable demands of DC. I have very little doubt that if UDE made an offer to DC that was mutually beneficial, DC would accept it.

Here's something a lot of people forget. DC did not pull the rights from UDE. UDE asked to change the terms of the agreement. They could have gone on publishing DC sets under the original agreement, but they decided it was not in their best interest to do so.

The rumors I have heard involve using comic book art. UDE wants to cut costs by "recyling" art. Marvel retains the rights to the art produced in their comics. They are all to happy to charge UDE a small fee to use the art in their library. DC allows the artists to retain the rights to their artwork. So, DC couldn't make a similar arrangement if they wanted to.

I don't think DC's the bad guy here. I just don't think that a mutually beneficial arrangement can be reached. UDE can't make enough money if they have to pay for new art and DC doesn't have art to provide to them.

If they have made a decision and they still aren't making an announcement, the news is probably bad. There's either no news or bad news that they don't want to share with us. Good news would only help the sales of MEV. If there was good news, we'd probably know it already.

Thanks Lebeau,

Appreciate the feedback. Yup, i think it was over for me to call DC a dunderhead, and yup, DC still has to fix owning the art so it could be reused. Just had too much drama. Good thing we still have the community and our forums. :)

Wow. I've never seen a response like this on any forum I have ever posted on. Good show, sir. Reps for you!

The problem with DC vs. Marvel is the popularity of characters. If it's not Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or Green Lantern, it doesn't sell too well. Marvel has a whole host of properties to work with: X-men, Avengers, Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Punisher, etc.etc.

That's what UDE is having to gauge when making decisions. I can't telly ou exact numbers from things that I've seen. But it's definitely safe to tell you that sets with Marvel characters sell significantly better than sets with DC characters. If memory serves, it's nearly 2 to 1. I'm sure most of you have seen these results in your stores.

And for grabbing new customers, having Marvel characters on the table is awesome. When someone walks by a table of people using a DC set, there's a lot of, "What's a OMAC?" or "I've never even heard of that guy," or worse yet, "Do they have a card of <insert popular marvel guy>?"

Even when we ran events, we had more people excited during the Marvel heavy formats. So, it's a slam dunk decision. Also, if you look from a design standpoint, it's got to be more fun and interesting to build cards for all the Marvel villains. In DC all the good villains pretty much belong to Batman and/or Superman (excluding the rare big name ike Sinestro).

Does UDE need to make an announcement. Yeah. I think they do. The sooner, the better.

Does it need to include DC. Not really, but it would be nice for a lot of people. I'd even be down for including Street Fighter, Voltron, some crazy off the wall stuff if the cards were good. I think including Anime titles could be a risky dice roll though. You are then having to weigh how many comic fans you potentially turn away vs. the number of anime customers you poentially gain.

I'm sure there are a lot of tough decisons being made at the UDE offices. VS has had a solid track record over the past few sets though, and I'd expect that has to count for something.

I'd love to host mor elarge VS System events if UDE goes that route.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

dont forget as well powerdragon, that the Marvel sets tended to be either better overall or at least more stompy of sets, while dc was more about tricks.

Plus it didnt help that some of the most obscure characters got some amazming powers,
dr light, Ahmed samsara.

it hurt VS alot in its mid years of having a lack of named characters in good decks

xmen sucked
superman sucked
batman was lucky fizzle dependant
Arkham sucked
spiderman sucked
Sydicate sucked
JLA was hawkman, hawkwoman
GL deck didnt play Hal jordan, or john stewart
Avengers was best without cap, ironman, and thor


what was good?
Sentinels, titans, F4, high voltage, Enmey of my enemy + dr light+ prof x= something, tons of decks that had nothign to do with the theme of the game they were just mish mash of cards.

oh and by the time UDE got around to fixing these issues the game was pretty much ####canned.