Kabam has ceased development on its strategy RPG MARVEL United, which is currently in soft launch in Australia, Canada, Denmark and Sweden.

In a statement on the Marvel United forums, a representative for Kabam said, "We regret to inform everyone that we will not be continuing the launch of MARVEL United."

"While we are very thankful for strong support from all of our players, we will not be moving forward with the global launch.

"Because of this, we will be forced to turn off server support on January 3, 2016. We will also be turning off allin-app purchases at this time."

Hulk not smash

There is no official statement on why the game is being shut down, though it is most likely due to company's inability to increase the game's retention and monetisation metrics, making an expensive global launch not viable. 

In contrast, as our Monetizer Mavens recently discussed, rival Zynga is making a big play that it's increased the Day 30 retention on key game Dawn of Titans by "200 basis points".

The move comes at a difficult time for Kabam, which during 2015 took the decision to can original IP Moonrise in soft launch, while its Star Wars Uprising game is yet to demonstrate strong commercial appeal.

Still, on the flipside, its Marvel: Contest of Champions game has been its fastest to $100 million in revenue, and continues to grow apace.

And more generally, it's always better to can an underperforming game in soft launch than assume a global launch will somehow be a success.