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Comic books have always been vehicles for wish fulfillment. Spiderman has always been a particularly effective vehicle for wish fulfillment, because Spiderman himself is a much more relatable character than superheroes like Superman and Batman. Superman, as popular as he is, has few flaws and weaknesses. Batman may be a much more flawed individual, but his success and wealth can certainly distance him from many readers. Batman and Superman are still successful characters when it comes to wish fulfillment, but they still seemingly represent a different category. All three superheroes have been featured very prominently throughout several films in recent years. Many people today who want to play Spiderman games will probably already have seen more than one film series featuring Spiderman. Spiderman games would have achieved a certain level of popularity anyway due to the prevalence of Spiderman in American popular culture. Spiderman comics are practically a cultural institution by this point, given the number of generations that have grown up with Spiderman comics and Spiderman films. Many demographics have been won over by Spiderman films in recent years, which signals their fairly broad appeal. It is no surprise that Spiderman games would become another part of the vast amount of material surrounding Spiderman. Making Spiderman games is clearly profitable, and there is a reasonable amount of demand for them. Branding has always worked well in marketing, and Spiderman is a recognized brand by this point. The line between an especially popular character and a brand can become blurred at the extremes. There is something far more satisfying about choosing a game that features a well-known character with an established history, as opposed to trying to forge that connection with a new, unknown character from scratch. Well-known characters can benefit from the amount of inertia surrounding them. There is a reason that Spiderman games are successful even compared to other games that feature famous fictional characters, however, and some of that does come down to Spiderman himself. Spiderman is typically portrayed as an awkward character with personality traits that are often relatable to the target Spiderman demographic. They can more easily imagine Spiderman stories as being representative of what would happen to them if they were suddenly able to acquire superhuman abilities. Being able to project yourself into a story properly can actually make it much more successful in terms of wish fulfillment than simply making the superpowers as excellent as possible. Spiderman’s superpowers themselves have a somewhat unique quality to them, as well. Scaling buildings and building webs as Spiderman, and figuring out how to solve problems using Spiderman’s skills, makes for a different experience than using Superman’s vast arsenal of abilities to solve a wide range of problems. Spiderman games take full advantage of Spiderman’s unique characteristics, and make for a fun experience that sets Spiderman apart from other computer game avatars. Games similar to Spiderman games are out there, since superhero games are a popular genre by themselves. Spiderman games may have been popular anyway, even if the character were a relatively recent invention, instead of an old one with a huge history behind it. As it stands today, the specific tropes that Spiderman uses and the well-known nature of Spiderman media work to make Spiderman games popular.
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