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Disney Infinity Canceled; Disney Exits Console Publishing; Avalanche Shut [Statement]

Ridley327

Member
Sooo Amiibo won?

LEGO Dimensions is still going for the foreseeable future, and we're due for a Skylanders announcement any day now (though the outlook isn't too hot for that one). There's something grimly hilarious about how the biggest recent success for toys-to-life are figures that aren't required to play games at all and are locked into a single ecosystem for those that care.
 
Feels like Disney is announcing the end of their console gaming business every couple of years. First with SplitSecond and the closure of Black Rock, then with Epic Mickey 2 and the destruction of Junction Point, now with DI3 and Avalanche. .

This is the end, for real. They've been shrinking it for years; Avalanche was their last internal console studio and DI was the only console product they were still publishing.

I think the last non-DI console/handheld title they published was a Planes game back in 2013.
 

JamesAR15

Member
Sad for all those at Avalanche, hope they all land on their feet.

Honestly I'm not surprised with Infinity. I played 2.0 a bunch with my son since it was packed in with my top loader PS3 but it really wasn't much fun.
 
I guess maybe this gaming figurine thing was just a short-lived fad? 'Cause it sounds like none of them are selling that well at all. I guess Disney can see the writing on the wall.
 

hawk2025

Member
Skylanders is such jank, though.

With 3.0, Disney improved the gameplay, the mechanics, the variety of playsets, and the build possibilities so much. It was a genuinely good game IMO.


The worse series won out :/

I suppose there is some justice in the fact that they were first out, though.


Not particularly, since the movie license is with Activision and has been for years now.

But this is just impossible to know at this point with the mess that the negotations regarding Spider-Man in the MCU must have been.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
Let me ask you this, GAF. Would you be okay with MvC4 with zero X-Men or Fantastic Four characters? Because that's what we'd get if the license gets renewed in the near future.
 

SpotAnime

Member
That sucks. I was never really interested in playing the games but I was glad they existed.
Did they ever get around to releasing that Baloo figure?

It came out already, and is gorgeous as expected.

So we are stuck with just figures now that have no use?

Ugh.. Last year, I bought over a dozen figures thinking it would be a decent long term investment for future Play sets.

This sucks

Should still work aside from multiplayer, toybox sharing and the community videos (Infinity University). I'm sure game will be patched to allow for offline play if there are any other hooks requiring servers/online that we don't know about.
 

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
So without Infinity, Skylanders and the Lego games are the only Non-Nintendo franchises that target kids.

I assume you mean not just toys to life? Sony's Ratchet, Little Big Planet, and Tearaway are recent examples.

Edit: You must mean NFC figurine-based games, nevermind.
 
Let me ask you this, GAF. Would you be okay with MvC4 with zero X-Men or Fantastic Four characters?

Aside from Super-Skrull Marvel 3 didn't have any FF members anyway, and I don't think they were in previous games, were they?

Not having X-men though would be awful though. No Wolverine, No Magneto, No Storm :(
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
Aside from Super-Skrull Marvel 3 didn't have any FF members anyway, and I don't think they were in previous games, were they?

Not having X-men though would be awful. No Wolverine, No Magneto, No Storm :(
You forgot Doctor Doom. And Deadpool counts as an X-Men character as far as the ban goes.
 

Acosta

Member
Disney Interactive must be one of the worst producers in these last years of the industry, utterly incompetent.

Really sorry for the Avalanche guys, they deserved better.
 
The local Walmart has had 2.0 edition bundles on clearance for $10 for months now, and the shelf is always full. The figures all say 3.0 on them. Can you not use those figures on 2.0 I assume?
 
It came out already, and is gorgeous as expected.





Should still work aside from multiplayer, toybox sharing and the community videos (Infinity University). I'm sure game will be patched to allow for offline play if there are any other hooks requiring servers/online that we don't know about.
K this is what I wanted to hear. Thanks.
 

CamHostage

Member
The Avalanche news is hurting. I hope a large studio spins up quickly to re-establish these guys rather than a hundred indie studios, it was a nice workhorse studio with Toy Story 3, the Tak games, some other fun licensed stuff in there. Disney Infinity reasonably crashed under its own weight, but I don't necessarily blame developers for that.

As far as Disney Interactive, though, it always felt like Disney was not into this business. When they did nothing to get involved with the Marvel market as the movies took off (granted, it was a licensing deal hell with all the different brand deals,) it made me curious what Disney Interactive really stood for, and then when Disney just gave away the contract rights to EA for Star Wars, it seemed like DI was already headed towards where it is today. But Disney Infinity at least seemed like the corporate synergy one would expect them to capitalize on. So, not surprising news, but I was among those who thought the company was finally on the right track from a business standpoint.
 
Wow.. I live in Utah and was thinking of how cool it would be to work at Avalanche. heart goes out to the devs, hope they can find their footing again.
 

erlim

yes, that talented of a member
I wonder what this will mean for their licenses for old lucasarts, marvel, and disney games. I'd love to keep the catalogue releases coming. I had a grand old time playing Shadows of the Empire from GOG. As for Disney Infinity, they should probably just license it out to another publisher, no?
 
Yup. Doesn't seem warranted.

Just sounds to me they don't find in-house game production of any sort being lucrative anymore.

I wonder what this will mean for their licenses for old lucasarts, marvel, and disney games. I'd love to keep the catalogue releases coming. I had a grand old time playing Shadows of the Empire from GOG. As for Disney Infinity, they should probably just license it out to another publisher, no?

Being in the game industry strictly as a licensing entity would allow that to happen yeah, but considering the fact that Disney Infinity is no longer making the big bucks for THEM, I doubt another publisher would be willing to take that onto their own plate with Disney getting a chunk of the revenue.
 

Roo

Member
Weird, I thought the entire Disney Infinity ecosystem was selling like hot cakes.

Ok, maybe not that good but definitely not expected it to go full Dodo mode.

So sorry for everyone who lost their jobs because of it.
 
Is this the third or fourth time Disney has killed their internal studios and fired everyone? They seem totally schizophrenic on their games strategy.

So far, from what I can recall / find, here's a list of videogame development studios that have been shut down under Disney's watch...
- Wideload Games (Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse, Hail to the Chimp, Guilty Party)
- Propaganda Games (The 2008 Turok reboot, Tron: Evolution, what would had been Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned)
- Black Rock Studio (Pure, Split Second)
- Junction Point (Epic Mickey and its sequel Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two)
- LucasArts (closed when Lucasfilm was acquired)
- Acclaim Games (small studio revival of the former Acclaim Entertainment in 2008 that produced online games, it was later acquired by Playdom in 2010, which was itself bought by Disney a few months later, Acclaim Games was disbanded shortly afterwards)

So Avalanche Software's closure marks the seventh time Disney dumped a studio in its grave. Any gaming studio bought by the company virtually has its days numbered. In light of that, Avalanche Software being shuttered unfortunately isn't surprising to me, hopefully the laid off staff can find work quickly (though Disney Infinity not selling gangbusters is surprising to me).
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Actually, I figure this is a really good opportunity for retail to devote sections to VR, particularly for PSVR.

How? The only peripheral is a helmet. No reason for it to take up anywhere near the space devoted to these toys.
 

Toothless

Member
Holy shit. I wasn't expecting this at all. Might pick up some figures just for my own collecting nature. Shame, was thinking of diving into this at some point.
 

Arkam

Member
Any statements on their (disney) mobile game division(s)? They plan to keep or they getting out all together?
 

Ridley327

Member
How? The only peripheral is a helmet. No reason for it to take up anywhere near the space devoted to these toys.

Demo space is needed. Most DI displays I've seen at retail dedicate at least one section to just the big monitor that runs the sizzle reel, and the rest to the figures.
 
Is this the third or fourth time Disney has killed their internal studios and fired everyone? They seem totally schizophrenic on their games strategy.

Their problem is that they have no long-term games strategy.

They just have marketing strategies that include games.
 

mreddie

Member
FUCK.

Skylanders somehow survives and yet this, I assume their gameplay limited things and once 3.0 came, Lego and Skylanders cannibalized their sales.

And Avalanche shutting down? Disney Games done for?

FUCK.
 
Considering their movies are doing gangbusters, I wonder why Disney didn't try to get figures into theatres. You take your kids to see Zootopia and walk out with Hopps and Wilde figures.
 
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